Risking the Future Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbearing, Volume II Working Papers only (1987) / Chapter Skim
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Adolescent Pregnancy and Childbearing: An Emerging Research Focus
Adolescent Pregnancy and Childbearing: An Emerging Research Focus
Pages 1-6
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The news media has stressed ache epidemic nature of adolescent pregnancy. Despite the fact that birth rates among teenagers have actually declined somewhat since 1970, policy makers, profess ionals, parents, and researchers have debated ache meaning of these social and demographic trends and have repeatedly called for immediate responses to the "impending crisis.
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The Rockefeller Foundation and ache Hewlett Foundation, because of their s bong interest in international family planning issues, also began to support research and demonstration activities aimed at exploring factors affecting teenage fertility and ways of enhancing young people's knowledge and use of contraception. Similarly, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, because of its commitment to improving the plight of disadvantaged groups, targeted teenage parents as a population in need and established its Too Early Childbearing network of innovative co~nmunity-based programs to enhance the we' 1-being of teenage mothers and their children.
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In contrast, information concerning adoption appears to be Ache largest gap, since there is currently no national reporting system to collect data on adoptions, including characteristics of the biological mother and father. Although other problems affect current understanding of adolescent pregnancy and childbearing, including the lack of consistency with regard to race and ethnicity across data sources and the difficulty of obtaining information about males and very young teenagers, knowledge about trends in teenage sexual and fertility behavior has greatly improved over the past decade.
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Those who attend racially isolated schools and live in poor, segregated neighborhoods in which early childbearing and single parenthood are familiar patterns are more likely deco become sexually active at a young age and experience a pregnancy than are young people living and going deco school is more prosperous and racially diverse environments . Moreover, teenage girls who are experiencing academic problems, who have low academic and career expectations, and particularly those who have dropped out of school, appear to be at a heightened risk of becoming pregnant.
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As a result, this body of research has frequently failed to yield a firm scientific base on which to build policies and programs. The costs, effects, and effectiveness of few interventions have been clearly demonstrated, although there are two notable exceptions: programs to encourage contraceptive use among sexually active teenagers have been shown to reduce the rate of pregnancy among program participants; and programs to provide prenatal care to pregnant teenagers have been shown to reduce the incidence of pregnancy complications and to improve birth outcomes for young mothers and their babies.
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From page 6... ...
Each table is accompanied by a brief narrative highlighting the key points that emerge from the Data. Taken together, these papers and the statistical appendix represent a valuable resource for researchers, policy makers, and program designers, who regularly need Information on trends in teenage sexual and fertility behavior, on the antecedents ant consequences of pregnancy and childbearing among teenagers, and on the costs, effects, and effectiveness of alternative programmatic strategies.
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