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The Lasting Effects of Teen Pregnancy Programs: Evidence from a Regional Collaborative

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Population Change and Public Policy

Part of the book series: Applied Demography Series ((ADS,volume 11))

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Abstract

While the effectiveness of individual curricula or educational strategies to combat teenage pregnancy have been explored in numerous rigorous studies, community-wide teen pregnancy prevention efforts that use a diversity of strategies simultaneously remain understudied. We help reduce this gap by examining Delta Futures, a comprehensive regional effort to improve the quality of teen pregnancy programming in 13 counties of the Mississippi Delta, in changing attitudes, motivations, and self-reported intentions relating to abstinence, contraception, and sexual risk. Our analysis of survey assessments from over 3000 participants reveals several findings relevant for practitioners of teen pregnancy programs and collaboratives: (1) Overall, we find evidence that the program improves participants’ willingness to commit to using birth control, but not to pursue abstinence; (2) Abstinence intentions improve considerably for students who had recent sexual experience; (3) Improvement in motivations relating to birth control and abstinence, as well as perceptions of sexual risk; (4) Statistically insignificant but counter-intuitive findings when comparing the effectiveness of an abstinence-only with an abstinence-plus curriculum; (5) More potent impacts among females, the sexually active, and individuals with low self-esteem; (6) Contraception-related impacts are sustained up to 12 months.

The authors thank the following individuals for their useful feedback and assistance during the writing of this chapter: Rachel Arthur, Nikki Payne, Madeline Plaster, Karin Scott, Twanda Wadlington, and Nakisha Watts. We also thank Billystrom Jivetti, Nazrul Hogue, and the International Association of Applied Demography for the invitation to contribute to this edited volume, as well as the anonymous reviewer for helpful feedback.

This is an original work by the named authors and is being submitted exclusively to the International Association of Applied Demography for publication consideration into an edited book on Applied Demography by Springer Publishing Company.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Community Research and Evaluation, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA

    Jonathan Bennett & Wesley James

  2. University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA

    Christopher N. King

  3. Department of Psychological Sciences, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

    Chelsea Joyner

  4. Delta Health Alliance, Stoneville, MS, USA

    Karen C. Matthews

Authors
  1. Jonathan Bennett
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  2. Christopher N. King
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  3. Chelsea Joyner
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  4. Wesley James
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  5. Karen C. Matthews
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathan Bennett .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Geospatial & Population Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Billystrom Jivetti

  2. Hobby School of Public Affairs, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

    Md. Nazrul Hoque

Appendices

Appendices

Appendix 1: Coding of Indices

The Perceptions of Risk Index is coded by converting the following questions into a numeric scale with answers spaced equally from 0 to 1, where 1 is the answer listed below next to each question – this answer corresponds to the participant perceiving large amounts of risk from sexual activity, pregnancy, and STDs. Each student’s answers for the five questions are averaged, with “Don’t Know” or blanks ignored.

  • Imagine that sometime soon you were to have sexual intercourse with someone just once, but were unable to use any method of birth control for some reason. What is the chance that you (or your partner) would get pregnant?

  • ALMOST CERTAIN

  • Suppose that sometime soon you had sexual intercourse for a whole month, as often as you wanted to, without using any protection. What is the chance that you would get the AIDS virus?

  • ALMOST CERTAIN

  • Getting pregnant or getting someone pregnant at this time in your life is one of the worst things that could happen to you.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • If you got the AIDS virus, you would suffer a great deal.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • It would be a big hassle to do the things necessary to completely protect yourself from getting a sexually transmitted disease.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

The Abstinence Motivations Index is coded by converting the following questions into a numeric scale with answers spaced equally from 0 to 1, where 1 is the answer listed below next to each question – this answer corresponds to the participant being unmotivated to engage in sexual activity. Each student’s answers for the five questions are averaged, with “Don’t Know” or blanks ignored.

  • If you had sexual intercourse, your friends would respect you more.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • If you had sexual intercourse, your partner would lose respect for you.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • If you had sexual intercourse, afterward, you would feel guilty.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • If you had sexual intercourse, it would upset your mother (or main caretaker).

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • If you had sexual intercourse, it would give you a great deal of physical pleasure.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • If you had sexual intercourse, it would relax you.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • If you had sexual intercourse, it would make you more attractive.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • If you had sexual intercourse, you would feel less lonely.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • If you got pregnant, or got someone pregnant, it would be embarrassing for your family.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • If you got pregnant, or got someone pregnant, it would be embarrassing for you.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • If you got pregnant, or got someone pregnant, you would have to quit school.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • If you got pregnant, or got someone pregnant, you might marry the wrong person just to get married.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • If you got pregnant, or got someone pregnant, you would be forced to grow up too fast.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • If you got pregnant, or got someone pregnant, you would have to decide (or help decide) whether or not to keep the baby, and that would be stressful and difficult.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

The Birth Control Motivations Index is coded by converting the following questions into a numeric scale with answers spaced equally from 0 to 1, where 1 is the answer listed below next to each question – this answer corresponds to the participant being motivated to use birth control. Each student’s answers for the five questions are averaged, with “Don’t Know” or blanks ignored. These questions were not administered to students in Middle School programming.

  • In general, birth control is too much of a hassle to use.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • In general, birth control is too expensive to buy.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • It takes too much planning ahead of time to have birth control on hand when you’re going to have sex.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • It is, or would be, too hard to get a sexual partner to use birth control with you.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • For you, using birth control interferes, or would interfere, with sexual enjoyment.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • It is easy for you to get birth control.

  • STRONGLY AGREE

  • Using birth control is morally wrong.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

  • If you used birth control, your friends might think that you were looking for sex.

  • STRONGLY DISAGREE

Appendix 2: High School & Community Survey Instrument

The following survey was used for all settings except middle schools.

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Appendix 3: Middle School Survey Instrument

The following survey was used for middle schools only.

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Funding Disclosure

This publication was supported by Award No. TP1AH000095-04-00 from the Office of Population Affairs (OPA). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of OPA or HHS.

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Bennett, J., King, C.N., Joyner, C., James, W., Matthews, K.C. (2020). The Lasting Effects of Teen Pregnancy Programs: Evidence from a Regional Collaborative. In: Jivetti, B., Hoque, M.N. (eds) Population Change and Public Policy. Applied Demography Series, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57069-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57069-9_1

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