Posts Tagged ‘teen pregnancy’

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Annual Abortion Report Published

September 18th, 2012

A couple of years ago a bill was passed that required our agency to do a comprehensive statistical report about abortion in Arizona. We published our second annual report this week… which includes data compiled from elective abortion procedures reports, complications from abortions reports and petitions filed authorizing abortions to minors. Facilities that provide the procedure are required to send us the required data elements every month (electronically). 

Over the last couple of years, we’ve been working hard to make sure that all providers are reporting as required by law. In years past… we think we were missing data because of under-reporting by providers. This year’s report suggests that those efforts to boost reporting are paying off. During 2011 (calendar year) there were a total of 14,401 abortions compared to 11,438 abortions in 2010… which is a 26% increase in the number of reported abortions. I underlined the word “reported” because when you look inside the data, it appears that some of the increase is attributable to better reporting and enhanced surveillance. You can read the full report on our Vital Statistics website. 

Let’s tie this report to our Strategic Plan  for a second- particularly our mission to reduce teen pregnancy.  We already know that AZ has had one of the steepest declines in teen pregnancy in the last few years when compared to the other states.  In this report, we see that despite the increase in the overall abortion rate (at least partially attributable to better reporting), the abortion rates for women 15 to 19 years of age declined by 30% in the last 10 years- consistent with declines in the number of teen pregnancies in AZ.

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Sonoran Public Health Department & ADHS Snag the Paul Fannin Award

June 11th, 2012

 The Secretario de Salud Publica & the ADHS jointly received the Arizona Mexico Commission’s Paul Fannin award for our public health collaborations last Friday night.  This is a top award for the Commission- with the award going to “… an organization that has demonstrated acts of goodwill and support toward the development of the Arizona-Sonora relationship.”  It’s named after the AMC’s founder, Governor Paul Fannin.  This is the first Fannin award that has gone to binational recipients.  ASU and UA got a joint award as did ADOT and the Yuma Port Authority a few years ago…  but this is the first one with binational recipients. 

 

We were jointly recognized for our awesome collaboration on things like valley fever surveillance and interventions, real-time infections bi-national disease reporting, TB case and treatment coordination, collaboration during the H1N1 pandemic, laboratory science teamwork, teen pregnancy and substance abuse prevention, collaboration on assisted living standards, and much more.  Thanks to all of you who have made our relationship with Salud Sonora a success!

 

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Posted in Behavioral Health, General, Licensing, Preparedness, Prevention

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New Border Health Resources

May 7th, 2012

Obesity, injury prevention, teen pregnancy, and substance abuse are all border health priorities.  Our prevention team put together an inventory identifying current programs addressing these priority areas in AZs border communities.  Our WIC program and Arizona Nutrition Network reach thousands of low-income women and kids along the border- improving nutrition and reducing obesity.  Programs like our Sexual Violence Prevention & Education and Safe Kids coalitions work to address injuries. 

Our women’s and children’s health shop just finished an analysis of  Teen Pregnancy in Border and Non-Border Counties in Arizona.  Teen pregnancy rates along the border have declined significantly in the past decade.   The border counties have higher rates of teen pregnancy among 15-17 year olds, but lower rates among 18-19 year olds compared to non-border counties. 

Also this week…  the national office of the March of Dimes issued a three-year analysis of various maternal and child health indicators in its March of Dimes MCH Border Report.  The report finds that Arizona residents of border communities have lower rates of prenatal care and higher rates of infant mortality than the non-border counties, but have lower preterm birth.

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AZ Leads the Way to Reducing Teen Pregnancies

April 10th, 2012

Teen pregnancy is a key public health indicator because of the profound negative health outcomes related to a lack of education and economic opportunity.   For example, only about 50% of teen mothers receive a high school diploma versus approximately 90% of their peers.  The disadvantages caused by a teen pregnancy can last a lifetime- and even spill over to the next generation.  Teen pregnancy is expensive too- costing about $11B per year in increased health care, foster care, incarceration, and lost tax revenue.  That’s why we’ve made reducing teen pregnancy in AZ a key element in our strategic map. 

Today’s good news is that teen pregnancy made a historic drop over the last 3 years in AZ.  In fact, teen pregnancy dropped by almost 30% in AZ over the last 3 years- the steepest decline in the nation.  

How did we get here?  As is the case with most things in public health- our success is tied to a host of interventions and circumstances.  No doubt our community-based contracts under the Personal Responsibility Education Program is a factor along with our federal Abstinence Education contracts.  The study that was published today shows that teens are becoming more educated about how to effectively prevent teen pregnancies and are using that info.  Another factor is probably the economy.  There’s a well known link between lower pregnancy rates in general and challenging economic times. 

The bottom line is that the trend toward lower teen pregnancy rates in AZ and the US is encouraging- but we need to do even better by using tried and true evidence-based practices to keep up the pressure on this important health indicator. 

 

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Teen Pregnancy Prevention Awards

March 21st, 2012

Late last week we awarded two new community-based contracts for the new Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) funds: BJ Youth Foundation and Mariposa Community Health Center. PREP is the new federal program from the Affordable Care Act that requires programs educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.  This was our 2nd Request for Grant Applications for this grant.  We awarded four contracts last fall, but still had funding unobligated and some high-risk and under-served areas.  We now have now 6 contractors under this federally funded program: Pima Prevention Partnership, Arizona Youth Partnership, Pinal Hispanic Council, Worthy Institute, BJ Youth Foundation, and Mariposa Community Health Center.  

These new projects augment federal Abstinence Education contracts that began last July.  Pima Prevention Partnership, Arizona Youth Partnership, Catholic Charities, and National Community Health Partners were awarded contracts and will be serving an additional 14,000 youth and parents in 20 communities throughout the state. 

 

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New Teen Pregnancy Prevention Contracts in Place

October 19th, 2011

Last week we awarded 4 community-based contracts for the new Personal Responsibility Education Program funds to prevent teen pregnancy in AZ.  The funding we’ll be passing through to our new contractors is part of the Affordable Care Act- and requires programs educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception as ways to prevent pregnancy and STDs.  All projects we selected for funding emphasize abstinence as the surest way to avoid pregnancy and STDs. 

The new contractors are Pima Prevention Partnership, Pinal Hispanic Council, Worthy Institute and Arizona Youth Partnership.   Two of these grantees (Pima Prevention Partnership & Arizona Youth Partnership) are also current contractors with us for the Abstinence Education Program, and have many years of experiencing implementing abstinence programs.  Pinal Hispanic Council is a behavioral health provider, and the Worthy Institute is a community-based organized focused on prevention efforts, particularly within the African American community.    

All contracts became effective October 1 with school based services being implemented in January 2012 and community based services being initiated as early as November 2011.  We’ll likely need to do a next round of proposals for services in the targeted areas that were not addressed in the selected contracts- including Mesa West, Glendale Central, Alhambra, Encanto, Phoenix Central City, Tucson Southeast, Tucson North Central, Casa Grande, Coolidge, Florence and Nogales with our remaining $340K. 

These new projects augment the recently awarded federal Abstinence Education contracts which were awarded to  Pima Prevention Partnership, Arizona Youth Partnership, Catholic Charities, and National Community Health Partners on July 1…  serving thousands of youth and partners in 20 communities throughout the state.

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Posted in Affordable Care Act, General, Prevention

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Preventing Teen Pregnancy

April 27th, 2011

Preventing teen pregnancy could save the United States about $9 Billion per year.Teen mothers face higher rates of preterm birth, and their kids have higher rates of low birth weight, and infant death.  Teen mothers are more likely to drop out of high school and remain single parents.They’re more likely to be jailed at some time during adolescence until their early 30s, drop out of high school, give birth as a teenager, and be unemployed or underemployed as a young adult.  Moreover, having a child during the teen years carries high costs —emotionally, physically, and financially—to the mother, child and community.  Their kids tend to have lower grades and proficiency scores at kindergarten entry and are more likely to have behavior problems and chronic medical conditions; and they rely more heavily on publicly-provided health care (AHCCCS).  All these things make teen pregnancy prevention a public health issue.  Parents, educators, public health workers, doctors, and community organizations all have a role to play in reducing teen pregnancy.

There’s some good news.  The rate of teen births has dropped by about 40% over the last 20 years in the US and there are additional steps we can take to continue this decline and help teens avoid pregnancy.  Teens who participate in abstinence and prevention programs have shown progress in making healthier sexual decisions.  These programs teach teens how to avoid situations that might lead to sex, to refuse it, and to wait until they’re older.  CDC issued a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and a Vital Signs report this month on the teen birth rate in the U.S.

Our Bureau of Women’s and Children’s Health has been working with community-based organizations for 13 years on teen pregnancy prevention strategies and will be able to expand those efforts using recent funding from the HHS’ Title V State Abstinence Program (our grant is about $1M).  Until May 10th, the Department is accepting applications for the abstinence funding grants.

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Teen Pregnancy on the Decline in AZ

January 19th, 2011

Our Bureau of Public Health Statistics just released a new 10-year trend report on Teen Pregnancy in Arizona, 1999-2009.  Some of the key findings are

  • Teen pregnancy rates dropped 34% in AZ from 1999 to 2009.
  • There were a total of 12,537 pregnancies to teens younger than 19 in 2009, which was the fewest number reported during this ten year period.
  • The decline in rates was especially steep for younger teens (15 – 17 year olds).  Rates among these younger teens dropped by nearly 45% in the past decade (from 51.5 per 1,000 in 1999 to 28.5 in 2009).
  • From 2007 to 2009, the number of teen pregnancies declined steeply for Asians (-23%), and Latinas (-19%).
  • Among Hispanic females 19 years old or younger the number of births declined by an unprecedented 18.5%, and the number of pregnancies declined by 19%. There is a reason to believe that there were fewer births (and pregnancies) among Hispanics of all ages, as well as teenagers, because there were fewer Hispanic or Latino residents in Arizona in 2009 than there were in 2007.

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Teen Pregnancy Prevention Resources in AZ

January 18th, 2011

To combat teen pregnancy, ADHS uses multiple approaches that best fit with needs of local communities.  Our Bureau of Women’s & Children’s Health has implemented teen pregnancy prevention programs since 1997 and currently administers the Abstinence Education Program and Comprehensive Education using lottery dollars and new federal funding authorized through the Affordable Care Act.   The federal Title V Abstinence Education Program was reauthorized and funded through June 30, 2014 under federal Health Care reform.  Arizona’s annual award is $1.3M.

The Healthcare reform law also amended Title V (of the Social Security Act) to include a new formula grant program entitled the Personal Responsibility Education Program funded through FY 2014.  The program must be designed to educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.  Our annual award is $1.1M for this new program.  Lottery funds that ADHS receives (about $3M per year) for teen pregnancy prevention serve to meet federal match requirements for Abstinence Education and federal maintenance of effort requirements for the Personal Responsibility Education Program.

Local programs funded by ADHS implement evidence-based strategies, such as:

  • service learning programs which focus on keeping young people constructively engaged in their communities doing community service;
  • youth development programs that take a broad approach to encouraging young people to think and plan for their future;
  • curriculum-based education that is offered as part of regular school classes or in after-school programs; and
  • parent programs that seek to improve parent-child communication.

Parents are very important in preventing teen pregnancy.  A public opinion survey, With One Voice 2010, recently released by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy provides some critical insight:

  • Teens (46%) say parents most influence their decisions about sex. By comparison only 20% say friends most influence their decisions.
  • Eight in ten teens (80%) say that it would be easier for teens to delay sexual activity and avoid teen pregnancy if they were able to have more open, honest conversations about these topics with their parents.
  • Six in ten teens (62%) wish they were able to talk more openly about relationships with their parents.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy offers great resources and tips for parents through its parent portal, including the new Talking Back publication identifying the top ten things that teens want adults to know about teen pregnancy.

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Teen Pregnancy Interventions

October 19th, 2010

Preventing teen pregnancies could save Arizona more than $180M/year.  Teen mothers face higher rates of preterm birth, and their kids have higher rates of low birth weight and infant death.  Compared to women who delay childbearing until the age of 20 to 21 years, teenage moms are more likely to drop out of high school and to be and remain single parents.

The kids of teenage mothers are more likely to:

  • have lower grades and proficiency scores at kindergarten entry
  • have behavior problems and chronic medical conditions
  • rely more heavily on publicly-provided health care (AHCCCS)
  • be jailed at some time during adolescence until their early 30s
  • drop out of high school
  • give birth as a teenager
  • be unemployed or underemployed as a young adult.

That’s why CDC picked this as a Winnable Battle.

Our Women’s and Children’s Health shop got a grant this fall that will help.  We’ll be getting about $1M per year to address teen pregnancy through the new federal Personal Responsibility Education Program. This program will educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, using evidence based programs or elements of effective programs.

In addition, we’ll get $1M/year in federal Abstinence Education funds for programs that support young people in delaying initiation of sexual activity and promote abstinence from sexual activity.   The award of both of these grants will enable Arizona to use multiple approaches that best fit with the needs of targeted high-risk communities.  The additional good news for Arizona is that four community organizations also received federal funding in the fight to prevent teen pregnancy, and we use $3M in lottery funds for the cause- which is a total of $8M to prevent teen pregnancy.

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