Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Norm Constantine discusses California's teen birth rate reduction

After almost two decades of reductions, California's teen birth rate is at an all time low and is now just half of what it was in 1991. But Kern County has bucked this trend with a teen birth rate nearly twice as high as the state overall, and still rising. In an article in the Bakersfield Californian, IHD member Norm Constantine discusses several potential explanations for the Kern County anomaly and why these don't hold up, concluding "I suspect local expectations and norms may be factors, I don't know how else to explain it."
http://www.bakersfield.com/news/local/x431719749/Kern-County-No-1-for-teen-births

Constantine also is quoted about the statewide teen birth rate reduction in an article in the Los Angeles Times, noting the importance of the state's Family PACT program in providing no cost reproductive health services to adolescents.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teen-births23-2010feb23,0,6743340.story