Statistical Publication Notice

(30/October/2007)

Teenage Pregnancies, year ending December 2005

INTRODUCTION/CONTEXT

A number of teenage girls experience unintended or unwanted pregnancies, although for some young people this is a positive life decision.  With a higher rate of teenage pregnancy than most other western European countries, reducing unintended teenage pregnancy is a national target for the Scottish Government.  Teenage pregnancy is also linked to deprivation with the rates of teenage pregnancy in deprived areas more that treble those of the least deprived areas.

There are at present two national targets for teenage pregnancy reduction:

Reduce by 20% the pregnancy rate (per 1000 population) in 13-15 year olds from 8.5 in 1995 to 6.8 in 2010.

Reduce the teenage pregnancy rate (per 1,000 population) of 13-15 years olds in the most deprived areas from 12.6 in 2000/2 to 8.4 in 2007/9  

KEY POINTS (3 - 5)

The teenage pregnancy rate has been fairly steady for the past decade.  In 2005 there were 56.7 pregnancies per 1,000 females aged below 20 (denominator is females aged 15-19) and 7.1 pregnancies per 1,000 females aged below 16 (denominator is females aged 13-15).

There have been some changes in the balance between teenage pregnancies which are aborted and pregnancies which are delivered.  Over the past five years, there has been a slight rise in the rate of abortions in all the teenage age groups.  The younger females (below 16) have had a fall in the rate of deliveries but the older teenagers (below 20) have shown a slight rise in deliveries in the past two years.

There is a strong deprivation gradient. The most deprived groups have approximately ten times the rate of delivery as the least deprived, and twice the rate of abortion.  These proportions have not varied much over the most recently available six years, and do not vary much with age.

There are considerable variations in teenage pregnancy rates between different geographical areas.  For the NHS Boards, Tayside has a consistently high rate.   

INTERPRETATION (any issues that readers should be aware of)

Newmethod of deriving teenage pregnancy information

Until recently, ISD derived teenage pregnancy information from our SMR02 data (maternity hospital returns) and SMR01 data (acute hospital returns providing information on therapeutic abortions and miscarriages).   We also presented the data by the year of the outcome rather than the year of the conception.  This approach meant that it was impossible to produce direct comparisons of teenage pregnancy rates with England & Wales.  We have also had recent problems with SMR02 returns from some areas, which has meant that the data produced by the old method would have been unacceptably out of date for both these reasons.  We have therefore introduced a new method of calculating these data which is compatible with the method used in England & Wales.

The method has been applied to all years to allow comparability over the whole period presented. The main changes are:births and stillbirths are now derived from civil registration data provided by the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) .Abortions are derived from the official notifications of abortions. Data are presented by the year of conception. 

Since these data can only be derived once the pregnancy has either been aborted or delivered, we may not know about a conception that happens in one year until very late in the subsequent year.   For example, if a conception happens in December 2005, the baby may not be born until September 2006 and the information not collated until the beginning of 2007.  This may make some of the data appear to be out-of-date. Data are presented by calendar year.

Teenagepregnancy targets

The target relating to overall pregnancy rates in the under 16s is largely unaffected by the change in the method of calculation since both the old and the new method produce a rate of 8.5 per 1,000 for the year 1995.   However there are differences at NHS Board level.

The second target, which relates to deprivation, is based on Carstairs deprivation quintiles.   Using the new method of calculation, the base value changes from 12.6 to 10.2, so a reduction of one third provides a target of 6.8 for 2007/9.   

DETAILED FINDINGS / COMMENTARY

Teenage Pregnancy in Scotland: 1994 to 2005

The teenage pregnancy rate for ages below 20 for the year 2005 is 56.7 per 1,000.   The rate peaked in 1998 with a rate of 58.3 per 1,000 then there was a gradual decline to 54.0 per 1,000 in 2002.  Since then there has been a slight increase to the present rate.

Within the under 18 age group the pregnancy rate has followed a similar pattern as the under 20?s. The rate peaked in the 90?s with a rate of 44.9 per 1,000 in 1998 then there was a gradual decline to 39.4 per 1,000 in 2001.   Since then there has been a slight increase to the present rate of 41.5 per 1,000.

The rate in the under 16 age group has fluctuated since the early nineties, peaking in 1996 at 9.0 per 1,000.   The lowest rates recorded is 6.6 per 1.000 in 2001. In the more recent years the rate has been around 7.0 per 1,000 with the latest year available being 7.1 per 1,000 for 2005.

In mainland NHS boards in 2005, Dumfries and Galloway recorded the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy in the under 16 age group (4.0 per 1,000), Borders recorded the lowest rate of teenage pregnancies in the under 18 age group (31.2 per 1,000) and Grampian recorded the lowest rate in the under 20 age group (47.5 per 1,000).

Tayside NHS Board, has the highest teenage pregnancy rates across all age groups. The rates are 9.5 per 1,000 for the under 16 age group, 53.4 per 1,000 for under 18 age group and 70.5 per 1,000 for the under 20 age group.

In mainland council areas in 2005, East Renfrewshire recorded the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy (30.1 per 1,000) and Dundee City Council had the highest teenage pregnancy rate (80.4 per 1,000), in the under 20 age group.

The delivery rate and the rate of abortion among under 16 year olds are similar for all years.   In 2005 the delivery rate was 3.0 per 1,000 and the rate of abortion was 4.1 per 1,000.  In the under 18  and under 20 age groups the rate of abortion is considerably lower than the delivery rate in all years.

In 2005, in mainland NHS board areas, the delivery rate in the under 20 age group was highest in Dumfries and Galloway and lowest in Grampian NHS board areas (47.1 and 24.5 per 1,000, respectively). The abortion rate was highest in Tayside and lowest in the Argyle and Clyde NHS board areas (30.7. and 15.2 per 1,000, respectively).

In the most deprived areas in 2005 the rate of teenage pregnancies in the under 16 age group was more than 4 times the rate in the least deprived areas (13.0  and 3.0 respectively). A similar patern was also present in the under 18 age group with 75.2 per 1,000 in the most deprived group and 16.0 per 1,000 in the least deprived.  Within the under 20 age group the rates were 97.5 within the most deprived groups and 23.1 per 1,000 within the least deprived. 

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HISTORY OF THIS PUBLICATION:

Last Published:  15^th December 2005
Next Due:  31 October 2008
Date available since: 1983 using SMR01/02. This year - 2007 - using GROS and AAS data and replicating the English method.