New numbers from the Centers for Disease Control show that birth rates for U.S. teenagers have dropped significantly.
According to Brady Hamilton, a co-author of the CDC report, teen birth rates have dropped to historic lows.
“There was a 9-percent decline in the teen birth rate between 2009 and 2010, which is unbelievable,” says Hamilton. “And across states, declines were seen in all but three states, and Wyoming declined 22-percent in its rate between 2007 and 2010.”
However, Hamilton says the CDC doesn’t know why the drop occurred and he says breaking down existing statistics into racial groups will be the first step to finding out why.
“In terms of looking at the specifics of the decline in a particular state, for example, Wyoming, we’ll definitely focus on the role these individual groups played in that decline, seeing where the large declines occurred amongst those groups,” says Hamilton.
Hamilton says nationally, if high teen birth rates from the early 90’s had continued to 2010, there would be an additional 3.4 million births to women 15 to 19 years old.
However, he also says more analysis will have to be done on the figures since the new statistics are based on the 2000 census and not the most recent numbers.
