U.S. Pregnancy Rates
The United States — despite a 17% decline in teen pregnancy rates in the 1990s — continued to have one of the highest adolescent pregnancy rates in the developed world at the time of this report.
Teen sex carries consequences, not only in the form of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, but those pregnancies lead to lower high school graduation rates and higher dependence on federal assistance. Plain Talk was a community-wide pregnancy-reduction initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation targeting low-income neighborhoods. This article published in 2000 presents several communities and their efforts to implement the Plain Talk plan.
Communicating with teens through Plain Talk increased the use of birth control, decreased the rate of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and increased the number of teens accessing healthcare advice.