County gets state funds to prevent teen pregnancies
Births to school-age teens increased again in 1995 in Mahoning County, especially in the townships and villages that form the General Health District, where the school-age teen birth rate has more than doubled since 1993. Health experts have noted these characteristics of teen parents:
- Pregnancies among sexually experienced teens have actually decreased over the last 20 years. However, due to a dramatic increase in the number of sexually active teens, the overall rate of pregnancy has increased.
- Twenty percent of teen moms will have more than one child before age 20.
- Eighty percent of poverty has been linked to teen births. It is estimated that 10 billion dollars of the cost to tax payers could be avoided if the births occurred when the women were over age 20.
- Sixty percent of teen moms will graduate from high school compared to 90 percent of their peers who delay parenthood.
- Teen fathers, like teen mothers, tend to be undereducated and live in poverty.
- An Emory University study of 1,000 sexually active women asked the participants what information they would like to have - 85 percent checked, "How to say no without hurting the other person's feelings."
- Early sexual activity does not always fulfill what a teen seeks. A 1994 Roper survey found that 62 percent of sexually experienced high school women and 54 percent of all the sexually experienced students, wished they had waited to have sex.
The Mahoning County Children and Family First Council - a local group of public and private health and social services organizations - received over $100,000 from the State in 1996 to mount a coordinated effort to help reduce the rate of teen pregnancy in Mahoning County. County Board of Health staff have been instrumental in helping to design this program.