Persisting teen age births, a global challenge

Introduction: Teen age births, though have reduced, are still common, with a lot of impact on mothers’, babies’, families’, communities’, nations’ health, world at large. Impact can echo throughout girl’s life, carry over to next generations. It has been revealed that globally unmarried adolescents have less access to family planning than general population and sex during adolescence is common with lack of awareness of sequlae in girls, specially in South East Asia. Objectives: To know about teen age births, effects, global challenges in prevention of teen age births, their sequlae. Methodology: Simple review about various studies, health providers views was done by different search engines like Uptodate, Pubmed, Ermed Consortium, Cochrane Library, Delnet, MedIND and self experiences were added. Results: Racial/ethnic geographic disparities in teen births persist, both within, across Countries, States, Districts, Communities, some with low rates and others with high. United States of America (USA) reported much higher teen age births compared to other developed countries though declined after 1991 dramatically between 2007 and 2016 as per published research using National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and Youth Risk Behaviour Survey in USA. Change was influenced primarily by increase in contraceptive use, to lesser degree declines in sexual activity. It was also revealed that in all countries, unmarried adolescents appeared to have less access to family planning than general population of. USA Teenage pregnancy has been reported to be associated with number of adverse health outcomes for mother, baby as well as social economic disadvantages for individuals, their future families even next generations. Existing literature suggested that the persistence of teen age births and many other aspects of girls lives reflected range of cultural, socio-economic factors. Conclusion: There is need of Improving adolescents awareness about sexuality, reproduction, sequlae. Access to contraceptives as per need, including emergency conception are essential. Public youth policies must consider the differences in stories of adolescents. Policies programs’ must go around their lives.

Existence, Distribution, and Characteristics of STD Clinics in the United States, 2017

Objectives: Studies of sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics have been limited by the lack of a national list for representative sampling. We sought to establish the number, type, and distribution of STD clinics and describe selected community characteristics associated with them. Methods: We conducted a 2-phased, multilevel, online search from September 2014 through March 2015 and from May through October 2017 to identify STD clinics in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia. We obtained data on clinic name, address, contact information, and 340B funding status (which requires manufacturers to provide outpatient drugs at reduced prices). We classified clinics by type. We also obtained secondary county-level data to compare rates of chlamydia and HIV, teen births, uninsurance and unemployment, and high school graduation; ratios of primary care physician to population; health care costs; median household income; and percentage of population living in rural areas vs nonrural areas. We used t tests to examine mean differences in characteristics between counties with and without STD clinics. Results: We found 4079 STD clinics and classified them into 10 types; 2530 (62.0%) clinics were affiliated with a local health department. Of 3129 counties, 1098 (35.1%) did not have an STD clinic. Twelve states had an STD clinic in every county, and 34 states had ≥1 clinic per 100 000 population. Most STD clinics were located in areas of high chlamydia morbidity and where other surrogate needs were greatest; rural areas were underserved by STD clinics. Conclusions: This list may aid in more comprehensive national studies of clinic services, STD clinic adaptation to external policy changes (eg, in public financing or patient access policy), and long-term clinic survival, with special attention to clinic coverage in rural areas.