England's Strategy To Reduce Teenage Pregnancies Is Working,
Study Indicates
01 Dec 2006
The
number of under-18s conceiving and having babies in England has
declined since the implementation of the government's national
teenage pregnancy strategy in 1999, according to an Article in this
week's issue of The Lancet.
Conception rates for
women younger than 18 years in England are among the highest in
Western Europe. In 1999 the government launched a 10-year strategy
that aimed to halve the rate of teenage conceptions by 2010.
The article reports on the independent academic evaluation
of the strategy, which was carried out by a team of researchers from
the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK (LSHTM, UK)
and University College London. As part of the evaluation, the team
analysed data from 148 local authority areas in England and
calculated changes in under-18 conceptions, abortions, and birth
rates between the 5-year period before implementation of the
strategy (1994-98) and the period immediately after implementation
(1999-2003). They found that the teenage pregnancy rate peaked in
1998 and then declined after the start of the national teenage
pregnancy strategy in 1999. Between the two periods, the conception
rate dropped by about 3.2% (from 44.3 to 42.9 per 1000 women aged
15-17 years), the abortion rate increased by around 7.5% (from 18 to
19.4 per 1000) and the birth rate fell by 11% (from 26.4 to 23.6 per
1000).
Lead author Dr Paul Wilkinson (LSHTM, UK), states:
!The overall fall [in teenage pregnancies] has been steady rather
than precipitous, and its pace is below that needed to meet the
ambitious national targets. Nonetheless, it represents a welcome
reversal of the previously rising trend in the period immediately
preceding the implementation of the strategy and a change of course
from the largely static rates of the past two decades in the UK.!
The team found that the decline in conceptions was greater
in areas where more strategy-related resources had been targeted. It
was also generally greater in rural areas, in more deprived areas,
and in areas with lower educational achievement.
Professor
Kaye Wellings (LSHTM, UK), who led the study, states: !The fall in
conceptions runs counter to the recent trend of stable or increasing
rates in some other European countries. What's more, in contrast to
many other health promotion strategies, the teenage pregnancy
strategy has been successful in targeting the worst off, rather than
just the well to do. Our findings give grounds for confidence that
the strategy is on course, and has had an impact in these early
years. However, sustained efforts will be needed to address the root
causes of teenage pregnancy, particularly those relating to the
broader socio-economic and cultural determinants.! (Quote by e-mail;
does not appear in Article)
In an accompanying Comment
Christine Galavotti and Diane Green (US Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA) states: !The data presented
indicate that teen births are indeed on the decline. Whether this
can be attributed to the national strategy remains an open question,
however linking future declines with more direct measures of extent
and quality of strategy implementation, and identifying the most
influential components, will be necessary to strengthen the national
program to sustain this positive trend." (Quote by e-mail; exact
version does not appear in published Comment)
