WEDNESDAY, Feb. 2 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. teenage birth rate has resumed its decline, reaching a historic low in 2009, according to a report published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) February Data Brief.
Stephanie J. Ventura and Brady E. Hamilton, Ph.D., of the CDC's NCHS in Bethesda, Md., used current data available from the National Vital Statistics System to illustrate trends and variations in U.S. teenage birth rates through 2009.
The report revealed that the teenage birth rate decreased 8 percent from 2007 to 2009, reaching a low of 39.1 births per 1,000 teens aged 15 to 19 years, with rates decreasing for all age groups and racial and ethnic groups. In addition, teenage birth rates for each age group and nearly all race and Hispanic origin groups were the lowest ever reported. Birth rates for teens aged 15 to 17 years declined in 31 states from 2007 to 2009 and decreased significantly in 45 states for teens aged 18 to 19 years. The report notes that the teen birth rate fell by more than a third from 1991 to 2005 but then rose by 5 percent over the next two years before the downward trend resumed in 2008 and 2009.
"Rates in the United States fell from 2007 through 2009 by age subgroup, race and Hispanic origin, and state. The recent trend marks a resumption of the long-term decline in teenage childbearing that started in 1991," the authors write.
Full Text
