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Information Review: Adolescent Pregnancy PreventionNational Center for Education in Maternal and Child HealthApril 28, 2000 Almost 1 million American adolescents become pregnant annually (Teenage Pregnancy: Overall Trends and State-by-State Information. 1999. Washington, DC: The Alan Guttmacher Institute). Despite a 17% decline in the adolescent pregnancy rate in the 1990s, the United States continues to have one of the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy in the developed world--similar to the Russian Federation’s rate and at least four times the rates in France, Germany, and Japan (Singh S, Darroch JE. 2000. Adolescent pregnancy and childbearing: Levels and trends in developed countries. Fam Plann Perspect 32[1]:14-23). May is recognized annually as National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month. To increase public knowledge about adolescent pregnancy and prevention measures, The National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health has produced a knowledge path on adolescent pregnancy prevention. It can be found at http://www.ncemch.org/RefDes/kpadolpreg.html. It contains electronic and print resources geared toward MCH professionals. Below are several key pregnancy-prevention resources: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (NCPTP) at http://www.teenpregnancy.org, in conjunction with the US Department of Health and Human Services, developed Get Organized: A Guide to Preventing Teen Pregnancy (1999), available at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/get-organized99/index.htm. This manual is designed to help launch community prevention activities. It includes strategies for involving boys and men, discusses outreach to religious leaders, and offers practical advice about how to raise money and conduct program evaluations. NCPTP's Web site also contains extensive resources for preventing adolescent pregnancy, including adolescent pregnancy and birth statistics for all 50 states, four territories, and the District of Columbia, with state rankings and national statistics for comparison. The Alan Guttmacher Institute report, Why Is Teenage Pregnancy Declining? The Roles of Abstinence, Sexual Activity and Contraceptive Use (1999), available at http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/or_teen_preg_decline.html, documents the components of change in the recent decline in adolescent pregnancy and birth rates, and the implications for public health policy. The Annie E. Casey Foundation released a KIDS COUNT report entitled When Teens Have Sex: Issues and Trends (1999), available at http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/teen/index.htm. The report focuses on the decline in the adolescent birth rate between 1991 and 1996. It provides key state-by-state and national indicators of adolescent health and sexual behavior, discusses the problem of adolescent pregnancy, and describes several successful adolescent pregnancy prevention programs. The Foundation supplemented this report with a working paper, Teen childbearing in America's largest cities (1999), which is available at http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/childbear. The paper addresses the even more dramatic decline in the adolescent birth rate in the nation's 50 largest cities during the same time period. The Resource Center for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (ReCAPP) at http://www.etr.org/recapp provides tools and information on reducing sexual risk-taking behaviors among adolescents. ReCAPP includes information on evidence-based programs that change sexual risk-taking behavior, skill-building activities, education and facilitation tips, statistics, and current research. It also has a database of educational materials. ReCAPP is a program of Education, Training, and Research Associates, a private nonprofit health-education promotion organization. It is supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Alliance Healthcare Foundation. To subscribe to the MCH Alert,
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