Springfield Teen Birth Rate Up; Holyoke Tops the List

Boston, MA—According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the national 2006 teen birth rate increased from 71.6 births per 1000 teen girls aged 15-19, to 80.7, a 12.7% increase. Holyoke’s rate is the highest in the state.

So what can Hampden County do?

“Young people need community support for three elements to prevent pregnancy,” says Patricia Quinn, executive director of the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy. “They need access to information, access to contraceptives for sexually active youth, and perception of opportunity.”

Massachusetts is not successfully achieving even the first 2 elements. State funds for health education were eliminated in 2002, and since then we have seen a decrease in health education offerings, especially in middle schools. Consider that by 9th grade, 30% of Massachusetts high school students have already engaged in sex.

“Critical sexuality education comes too late and too little for too many Massachusetts youth,” says Quinn. “And even more importantly, young people need to have a reason, a motivation to delay parenthood. How well are we doing to ensure that all our youth have access to real opportunity?”

Cities need to come together with young people in their communities to address teen pregnancy in meaningful ways. Young people want to be part of moving their communities forward and in shaping their own futures with community support.

“We’ve got a problem as a society,” says Quinn. “Our fear and ambivalence about adolescent sexuality leads to our failure to give good guidance to young people on how to make healthy sexual decisions with integrity.”

“The answer is not so much Jamie Lynn Spears, nor entirely the federal focus on failed abstinence-only-until marriage programs, but the culture they represent.”