One of the good news stories in public health is the very substantial decline in teen births over the last couple of decades. This decrease is important because we know that births to teens create long term challenges for both the children and the parents, including increased health complications, lower education levels and lower income. Although there is still lots of room for improvement – particularly with respect to racial and ethnic disparities – the 2011 and 2012 data released this year by the WI Department of Health Services (DHS) underscore the significant progress that has been made:

• In 2012, there were 4,195 births to Wisconsin teens (mothers less than 20 years of age), a decrease of 19% in just two years (from 5,147 teen births in 2010).
• The estimated pregnancy rate among Wisconsin teens in 2012 was 26.6 pregnancies per 1,000 females aged 15-19, significantly lower than the 2011 rate (28.5).
• Wisconsin’s teen birth rate has declined by nearly 50% over the last 20 years, and over the last decade it has consistently been about 25% below the national rate.

The decline in teen births reflects a sharp drop in teen pregnancies and is not the result of an increase in teen abortions. In fact, another DHS report shows that the teen abortion rate fell from 3.7 in 2010 to 2.6 in 2012 (per 1,000 females aged 15-17). For teens that are 18 or 19, the teen abortion rate experienced a dramatic decrease from 9.1 in 2010 to 6.6 in 2012.

The downward trend lines are welcome news, but the following graph illustrates that significant racial and ethnic disparities continue in Wisconsin. For example, although the largest declines occurred among American Indian and African American teens (whose birth rates in 2012 were 43.5 and 53.9, respectively), those two groups still have birth rates that are three to four times higher than the rate for white non-Hispanic teens (12.8).

One of the factors in the significant drop in teen births has been a major initiative in the City of Milwaukee. That joint public and private sector effort has helped yield a 50% drop in the rate of births among 15 to 17 year olds in the city from 2006 to 2012. That compares to a 47.6% drop for Milwaukee County as a whole, and a decline of 27% for all of Wisconsin outside Milwaukee County.  (Read more about the Milwaukee initiative in this Journal Sentinel article.)

The very sizeable drop in teen pregnancy rates in Milwaukee and the rest of the state is extremely encouraging, but we still have a long way to go to reduce the sharp racial disparities in our state.

Jelicia Diggs and Jon Peacock