Column: Let's do our part to prevent teen pregnancy
Since the early 1990s, the teen pregnancy rate has declined 38 percent. In fact, few social problems have improved quite as dramatically over the past decade.
However, the most recent news on this subject has not been positive. In January 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the teen birth rate had increased 3 percent between 2005 and 2006. This is the first increase after 14 years of steady decline.
On May 6, hundreds of thousands of teens nationwide are expected to participate in the seventh annual National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. The purpose of this national day is to focus the attention of teens on the importance of avoiding too-early pregnancy and parenthood.
On May 6, teens nationwide are asked to go to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy’s new teen website – www.stayteen.org – and take a short, scenario-based “quiz” which asks young people what they would do in a number of sexual situations.
The message of the national day is very straightforward – sex has consequences. The online quiz delivers this message directly to teens and challenges them to think carefully about what they might do “in the moment.”
Last year, more than 300,000 individuals took the online National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy quiz. A survey of the sum of teens that participated indicates:
• 73 percent said the quiz made them think about what they might do in such situations.
• 54 percent said the quiz made the risks of sex and teen pregnancy seem more real to them.
• 57 percent said some of the situations in the quiz were things that they or their friends had faced.
• 55 percent said they’d talk to their friends about the situations described in the quiz.
• 51 percent said the quiz made them think about things they hadn’t thought about before.
Lincoln County Community Health Center has agreed to help make sure that the 2009 national day is a success and would like to call on our community to help as well.
If you are a teen, tell your friends about the quiz mentioned above and talk to anyone who is important to you about the risks of teen pregnancy. If you are a parent and are concerned about this issue, ask your teen to take the quiz online and discuss the risks of teen pregnancy with them.
Education and communication are key in the prevention of many different health concerns and issues. We, as a community, need to do our part to help educate and encourage communication with our youth; for they are our future.
For more information about this cause and what you can do to help contact me at 293-3755, ext. 231, at Lincoln County Community Health Center.
(Nicky Willey is a licensed professional nurse and clinical coordinator at the Lincoln County Community Health Center in Libby).