Teen pregnancy in Virginia

The Roanoke Times

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Roanoke's rate of teen pregnancies dropped nearly 32 percent from 2009 to 2010, moving the city out of the top 10 localities in Virginia with the highest rates.

Roanoke still ranks 12th in the state. But the city's teen pregnancy rate for 2010 is one of the lowest since 1996, according to Virginia Department of Health statistics posted online recently.

"I think we just really tried hard to get the message out to teens, to show why it's important to wait to become a parent," said Brooks Michael, adolescent health educator at Carilion Clinic Children's Hospital.

Michael said she has visited 40 high school health classes this school year in Roanoke, Roanoke County and Salem to discuss teen pregnancy prevention. She shows students an episode of the cable television drama "Secret Life of an American Teenager," in which the 15-year-old character Amy must tell her parents she is pregnant. Michael uses the popular show to start a dialogue with the students and to share this message:

"You should abstain. That is your best choice. But if you're not, you need to have a plan," she said.

Roanoke's teen pregnancy rate has been lower only once since 1996. The health department reported a rate of 39.4 teen pregnancies per 1,000 females in 2004. The high rate was 71.8 pregnancies per 1,000 females in 1996 and 1997.

Bobby Parker, a health department regional spokesman, was unable Thursday to provide any details regarding what may have contributed to the dramatic decrease in Roanoke.

Elsewhere in the Roanoke Valley, Roanoke County saw a small increase in 2010 while the rates in Botetourt County and Salem dipped slightly.

Nancy Hans of the Prevention Council of Roanoke County said she and her colleagues will be scrutinizing the numbers in coming weeks to determine what may have affected the county's rate. The council's mission is to foster healthy development of youth in Roanoke County.

"It is very important that we continue to get as much information out about prevention with all risk behaviors among teens and young people to parents and all sectors of the community," Hans said.

Teenpregnancy.org reports a 9 percent decline in the nationwide rate from 2009 to 2010, the steepest single year decrease since 1947. The website references data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I am aware of no other social problem that has improved so dramatically over so many years," Sarah Brown, CEO of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, stated in a news release. "Progress in reducing teen pregnancy has been nothing short of remarkable — the teen birth rate has declined a stunning 44 percent between 1991 and 2010."

Still the CDC reports the number of U.S. teen pregnancies is highest among the nations of the developed world. About 400,000 American teen girls gave birth each year from 2004 to 2008, the centers report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report dated today. According to the report, births to teen mothers are public health concerns because the teen mothers are more likely to "experience negative social outcomes," such as dropping out of high school.