ADOLESCENT SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND CONTRACEPTIVE USE

Adolescent pregnancy and childbearing are health issues with profound social consequences. They are both intensely private concerns, yet they are the focus of relentless public discourse. It is only among adoles-cents that pregnancy and parenting are considered by some to be measures of our nation’s social ills. It is the social costs of adolescent pregnancy and childbearing, rather than the medical or health consequences, upon which many researchers, policy makers, and educators focus their attention. It has been argued that the real risks of early childbearing are concentrated in the social dependence, rather than the biologic vulnerability, of the adolescent. Adolescent childbearing is not uncommon in the U.S.: in 1998, about 12 % of all livebirths were t