Nevada No. 1 in the nation in teenage pregnancies

Art Nadler

Thursday, April 29, 1999 | 12:05 p.m.

Teenage pregnancies are declining across the nation, but Nevada still has the highest rate in the country, a health research organization reported today.

The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit agency dealing with reproductive health and public education issues, determined that nationally teenage births for women 15 to 19 years old declined 4 percent between 1995-96. The statistics are part of the institute's report, "Teenage Pregnancy: Overall Trends and State-by-State Information."

Pregnancy rates for Nevada teens mirrored the national trend, falling from 145 per 1,000 women ages 15-19 in 1992 to 140 pregnancies per 1,000 in 1996. California had the second-highest rate in 1996 with 125 pregnancies per 1,000 teens. North Dakota had the lowest rate with 50 per 1,000.

Nevada teens also had the second-highest abortion rate in the country, just ahead of New York, the report showed. Nevada's abortion rate declined from 54 per 1,000 women in 1992 to 51 per 1,000 in 1996. New York went from 60 per 1,000 women in 1992 to 53 per 1,000 women in 1996.

The lowest abortion rate in the country was in Utah. It went from 9 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-19 in 1992 to 8 abortions per 1,000 women in the same age group in 1996.

Susan Tew, deputy director of communications with the Guttmacher Institute, said it is difficult to isolate why Nevada has such a high rate for teen pregnancies and abortions. But, she said, the state's downward trend in both categories at least followed the national trend.

Recognizing that Nevada has a teenage pregnancy problem, the attorney general's office and the state Health Division mandated in 1996 that a four-year teen pregnancy prevention program be started.

The program included the formation of a Nevada Public Health Foundation to fund sex-education programs and training sessions statewide, the creation of community action teams (CATs) to recruit teenagers and support them in maintaining abstinence before marriage. It also encourages teenagers to form youth advisory councils to help teens deal with peer pressure and sexual advances.

Lynn Carrigan, administrator for the Nevada Public Health Foundation, said the organization has raised $700,000 to help community action teams provide pregnancy prevention education for teenagers. It also has aired television and radio commercials advocating abstinence before marriage.

"You can't speculate why we (Nevada) are the highest in the industrial world," Carrigan said. "Our strategy is to not dwell on why the problem exists, but to focus on what can be done about it. It's a very complex issue, why teens have unprotected sex."

But Fran Courtney, director of Clinical and Nursing Services with the Clark County Health District, sees some problems in Southern Nevada that may be contributing factors.

She said with the gambling environment where one or both parents work night shifts, there is a lack of supervision when teenagers come home from school. Also, communities with low rankings of teen pregnancies have infrastructures of activities for teens. Programs locally are just getting under way.

"The Boys and Girls Clubs have supervised activities after school for teenagers," Courtney said. "The churches are doing the same. All of these are ways of getting kids involved and being supervised when not in school."

Linda Dean, executive director of the Women's Resource Centers of Southern Nevada, feels another problem is that teenagers are not getting sufficient sex-education information. She said she has tried numerous times to give informative talks in high schools, and every time principals denied her requests.

"In other states, we could go into the schools with a straight abstinence message, but they tell me here in Nevada that the law doesn't allow this," Dean said. "Teenagers are not hearing a good presentation of abstinence."

Ray Willis, spokesman for the Clark County School District, said principals are probably being careful because teenage pregnancy is part of sex education, which is addressed in Nevada law under the Division of Curriculum and Instruction.

The law mandates that all instructional materials used in classroom presentations be reviewed by a sex-education advisory committee and approved by the boards of education. Also, the statute states that subjects may be taught only by a teacher or school nurse whose qualifications have been approved by the boards.

Dean feels this narrow view about who can can go into schools is keeping qualified sex-education counselors out.

Inside the schools, the message is being carried by teenage Youth Advisory Council members. Jessica Winters, 19, is a student at Community College of Southern Nevada and is involved in putting on assemblies in middle schools in Clark County.

"We give students a visual connection of what it's like raising children," Winters said. "We give little skits, bringing in diapers. We show them women with babies won't be able to go out with their friends like before."

Winters said youth council members stress that it's OK to "just say no to sex," which is what the community action teams stress.

Jerry Turner is the program coordinator for the Metropolitan Resource Center, 2200 E. Cheyenne Ave., one of 35 teams throughout the state. His team serves the North Las Vegas area, setting up focus groups to advocate abstinence before marriage.

"We teach them how to say no at parties," Turner said. "We talk to them about date-rape drugs and how to protect themselves. We tell them what statements to use to avoid sex."

Turner said the action teams emphasis to teenagers that they need to develop their own identities and not fall victim to peer pressure.

"We take the approach that you don't have to have sex to fit in," Turner said. "We show them how to keep themselves out of compromising situations."