Original articleChanging Behavioral Risk for Pregnancy Among High School Students in the United States, 1991–2007
Section snippets
Methods
The YRBS is a school-based, self-administered, biennial national survey of U.S. private and public high school students [13], [14], [15]. This analysis used nine rounds of data, covering the period from 1991 to 2007. The YRBS uses a three-stage clustered sample (1, county; 2, schools within counties; and 3, classrooms within schools) to obtain cross-sectional data, which, when weighted accordingly, are representative of students in grades 9 to 12 in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Validation of the PRI
In general, we found that PRI scores correlated well with pregnancy rates and birth rates for 15- to 19-year-olds in the same year (R2 = .78 and .80 respectively) and lagged year (R2 = .78 and .79, Table 1). We found strong correlations between pregnancy risk and pregnancy and birth rates for non-Hispanic whites (.79–.84) and non-Hispanic blacks (.88–.96). Lower correlations were found for Hispanic teens (.26–.43). Inspection of the data suggested that 1995 was an outlier, with a PRI score that was
Discussion
After major improvement in the 1990s and early 2000s, behavior change related to teen pregnancy risk appears to have stalled or reversed after 2003. Important improvements in contraceptive use and pregnancy risk were found between 1991 and 2007, with improvements generally occurred between 1991 and 2003. Pregnancy risk behaviors did not change significantly after 2003, although contraceptive behaviors appeared to be moving toward greater risk of pregnancy. A single indicator (pregnancy risk
Acknowledgments
Doug Kirby for his advice on methods and policy, Amy Schalet and Theo Sandfort advice on the Dutch experience, and A.J. Melnikas for excellent editorial assistance. This article was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
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