School health centers may help lower fertility.

An analysis of fertility rates among black adolescents in Denver suggests that school-based health centers may help teenagers avoid childbearing. Fertility declined among black teenagers throughout the country in the mid-1990s; a particularly steep drop in Colorado was driven by sharp declines in Denver. Between 1992 and 1997, the fertility rate among black teenagers in that city fell by 77% (from 165 to 38 births per 1,000 female students) in areas where public high schools had comprehensive health centers. During the same interval, the rate fell by significantly less-56% (from 86 to 38 per 1,000)--in areas without school-based health centers. The analysts observe that if the 56% decline represents a secular trend, then in the absence of school health centers, the rate in areas with these facilities would have fallen to 73 per 1,000, or nearly twice the actual figure for 1997. They suggest that the difference is due to school-based health centers' educational efforts and "aggressive identification, intervention, and follow-up with students with high-risk behaviors."

(1.) Ricketts SA and Guernsey BE School-based health centers and the decline in black teen fertility during the 1990s in Denver, Colorado, American Journal of Public Health, 2006, 96(9):1588-1592.

FYI is compiled and written by Dore Hollander; executive editor of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.