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Article: Can emergency contraception help to reduce teen pregnancy? The authors argue that PAs cannot provide optimal care to adolescents if they aren't familiar with all pregnancy prevention options--including emergency contraception.(CME)
- Article from:
- JAAPA-Journal of the American Academy of Physicians Assistants
- Article date:
- June 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Haymarket Media, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Teen pregnancy rates in the United States have been declining since the early 1990s--a decline primarily attributable to more effective contraceptive practice, not to a decline in sexual activity. At the same time, however, US teen pregnancy rates remain persistently higher than those in most developed countries. According to 2006 data from the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit sexual health policy and research organization, approximately 750,000 teenagers annually still become pregnant, with 34% of these pregnancies ending in abortion. (1) Most of the pregnancies are unplanned. (2,3)
By age 17, approximately half of adolescents are sexually active. Most teens ...