| Sage Ninja |
02-07-2012 09:13 PM |
Conservative states with higher pregnancy rates
http://www.everydayhealth.com/sexual...6pLid%3D133567
Quote:
TUESDAY, Feb. 07, 2012 — 39.1 out of every 1,000 — that’s how many teenage girls gave birth in 2009 in the United States, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Compared to other industrialized countries, this number is pretty lofty: Live Science reports that in the United Kingdom, 24 out of every 1,000 teen girls gave birth that year, and only 4 out of every 1,000 had a baby in the Netherlands. But what about here in the United States — do birth rates vary state by state?
Yep, and research suggests that this may be the rule of thumb: The more conservative the state, the higher the teen birth rate. In a new Washington University study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, researchers looked at the birth rates of girls aged 15 to 17 living in 24 states from 1997 to 2005. Interestingly, Arkansas (which was recently ranked as the 10th most conservative state in the nation by Gallup) had the highest teen birth rate (at 34.8 births per 1,000 teen girls). Texas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma (all above-average in conservatism) also rank high. However, New Hampshire, which tends to swing to the left, boasted the lowest rate during this time period (at 9.7).
While these stats may seem to contradict logic (conservative kids have less sex, right?), the researchers note a number of issues that could be at play — and it could have something to do with the states’ sex ed programs.
Is Unsatisfactory Sexual Education to Blame?
"State adolescent births vary widely, and these disparities across states should be acknowledged as a major public health concern," researcher Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, PhD, told Live Science.
While the researchers studied the birth rates for each state, they also looked at the state’s sexual education practices — whether schools taught things such as STD prevention and condom efficacy — as well as each state’s level of conservatism, religiosity, and abortion policies.
Not surprisingly, conservative states tend to take a more conservative stance on sex education — some still focusing on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs instead of sexuality-based programs (14 of the 16 southern states, which also tend to be the most conservative, continue to concentrate on abstinence programs, according to a 2010 report from the Sexuality Information and Education Council). “Our findings provide evidence that increased sexuality education within school curricula is associated with lower adolescent birthrates,” the researchers wrote.
However, right-swinging states’ sex ed programs may not be the only factor: The fact that these states are more conservative and tend to be more religious suggest that the rates may also be related to more conservative views on abortion. “Could it be that, despite sex education, girls in both conservative and liberal states are getting pregnant at about the same rate, and that the girls in Arkansas are carrying their babies to term, perhaps as a result of higher religiosity, a lack of access to abortion services, or both?” asks Live Science.
The researchers say they need to investigate further before they can answer that question absolutely — but that these findings can help shape decisions about education programs in the future. “Though it still remains unclear as to what 'truly effective' sex education is, what we now know is that any future evaluations of sex education must consider the effects of sociopolitical characteristics in comprehensive analyses," Cavazos-Rehg said.
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well now, who da thunk it?
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