U.S. teens waiting longer to have sex

[TheGarbageMan]

Saturday, December 11, 2004


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Washington -- American teenagers are waiting longer to engage in sexual intercourse, and an overwhelming majority of those who are sexually active report using contraception, according to a comprehensive, well-respected government survey released Friday.

The report examining youth behavior found that more young men in particular have postponed sex -- 46 percent were sexually active in 2002 compared with 55 percent in 1995 -- and 91 percent of males who had sex in the previous three months used contraception.

For the first time since the government began its National Survey of Family Growth in 1973, more girls (47 percent) say they have had sex than boys (46 percent). Girls also report a high use of contraceptives (83 percent).

In many cases, researchers found, teens are using two types of contraception, such as the pill and a condom, in an effort to reduce the likelihood of pregnancy and a sexually transmitted disease such as AIDS.

"The news is almost all positive," said Bill Albert, spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "This data clearly underscores teens are being a bit more cautious about sex. This is a real sea change."

The data come amid a ferocious debate over the value of abstinence-only education, an approach President Bush has backed with $170 million in federal funding next year. On Friday, both supporters and detractors of abstinence- until-marriage programs claimed the report validated their sharply differing views. More neutral academics said the positive trends most likely reflected a combination of abstinence education and instruction on safer sex that have resulted in the notable decline in risky sexual behavior.

"They are both having an impact," said Douglas Kirby, a senior research scientist at ETR Associates, which focuses on health policy. "In today's polarized world, the very important message is that this (data) is not just abstinence-only or contraception."

In preparing its analysis, the National Center for Health Statistics interviewed nearly 3,000 teenagers in one-on-one conversations in the home. Researchers praise the periodic survey as one of the most authoritative sources on adolescents, in part because it reaches teenagers in and out of school and measures not only attitudes but also specific behaviors.

With the exception of 18- and 19-year-old young women, teenagers of both genders showed significant declines in early sexual activity. At the same time, nearly 10 percent of young women described their first sexual encounter as "nonvoluntary."

Latino teenagers were the least likely to use contraceptives, and 24 percent of Latino girls were likely to give birth before age 20, compared with 8 percent of white teens.

Some of the most dramatic improvement has come in the area of teenage birth rates. In 1991, 62 of every 1,000 American females between 15 and 19 gave birth. A decade later, the teenage birth rate fell to 43 per 1,000.

Even with such progress, U.S. teenage birth rates remain among the highest in the developed world. In 2002, Canada's teenage birth rate was 20 per 1,000; in France, it was 8 per 1,000.

There are many theories for the lower rates in other countries, Kirby said, including wider availability of medical services and health information, less societal division over sex education and a higher poverty rate among U.S. youth.

"There is a strong relationship between poverty and early childbearing," he said.



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