Page last updated: 29-JUN-2009

Teenage Pregnancies

National Statistics. Link to further information on National Statistics.Statistical Publication Notice

24 June 2008

Teenage Pregnancy Statistics, year ending December 2006

INTRODUCTION

A number of teenage girls experience unintended or unwanted pregnancies, although for some young people pregnancy 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 the most deprived areas more that treble those of the least deprived areas.
 
The national target for teenage pregnancy reduction is:
  • Reduce by 20% the pregnancy rate (per 1000 population) in under 16 year olds from 8.5 in 1995 to 6.8 in 2010.

KEY POINTS

  • The teenage pregnancy rate has been fairly steady for the past decade.  In 2006 there were 57.9 pregnancies per 1,000 females aged below 20 (denominator is females aged 15-19) and 8.1 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 continue to delivery.  Over recent years, there has been a slight rise in the rate of abortions in all the teenage age groups.  
  • 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 seven years, and do not vary much with age.
  • There are considerable variations in teenage pregnancy rates between different geographical areas.  Among NHS Boards, Tayside has a consistently high rate.  

INTERPRETATION

New method of deriving teenage pregnancy information
 
Until recently, ISD derived teenage pregnancy information from routinely collected management information: SMR02 (maternity hospital return providing birth information) and SMR01 (acute hospital return providing abortion information).  The data was previously presented by the year of the outcome (delivery or termination) 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 therefore introduced a new method last year of calculating these data which is now 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 Abortion Act Statistics (AAS) resulting from the official notifications of abortions under the Abortion Act 1967.
  • data are presented by the year of conception.
We have made the following additional changes this year:
  • from 2006 NHS board data are now presented for the new board configuration (Highland includes Argyll and Bute; Greater Glasgow and Clyde).
  • Local Council Area numbers and rates for age groups under 16 and under 18 are shown as three year rolling aggregates. This has been done to reduce the risk of disclosure and to smooth out the fluctuations resulting from small numbers.

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 2006, the baby may not be born until September 2007 and the information not collated until the beginning of 2008.  This may make some of the data appear to be out-of-date. Data are presented by calendar year.

DETAILED FINDINGS

Teenage Pregnancy in Scotland: 1994 to 2006
 
The teenage pregnancy rate for ages below 20 for the calendar year 2006 is 57.9 per 1,000.  The rate peaked in 1998 with a rate of 58.3 per 1,000 and 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 to the under 20?s. The rate peaked in the 90?s with a rate of 44.9 per 1,000 in 1998 and 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 and with the lowest rate of 6.6 per 1,000 in 2001. In more recent years the rate has been around 7.0 per 1,000 with an increase this latest year to 8.1 per 1,000.
 
In mainland NHS boards in 2006, NHS Highland recorded the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy in the under 16 age group (4.7 per 1,000), Borders recorded the lowest rate of teenage pregnancies in the under 18 age group (31.2 per 1,000) and also in the under 20 age group (44.1 per 1,000).
 
Ayrshire & Arran recorded the highest rate in the under 16 age group with a rate of 11.9 per 1,000.  NHS Tayside has the highest teenage pregnancy rates across the under 18 and under 20 age groups. These rates are 51.0 per 1,000 for under 18 age group and 68.0 per 1,000 for the under 20 age group.
 
In mainland council areas for the three year period 2004/06, Argyll and Bute recorded the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy (1.5 per 1,000) in the under 16 group and East Renfrewshire Council in under 18 year olds (21.1 per 1,000).  Dundee City Council had the highest teenage pregnancy rate in both these age groups, 15.3 per 1,000 in the under 16 age group and 71.1 per 1,000 in under 18s.  In 2006, the lowest and highest rates in the under 20 age group in mainland council areas are 26.6 per 1,000 in East Renfrewshire and 83.9 in Dundee City Council.
 
The delivery rate and the rate of abortion among under 16 year olds are similar for all years.  In 2006 the delivery rate was 3.3 per 1,000 and the rate of abortion was 4.8 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 2006, in mainland NHS board areas, the delivery rate in the under 20 age group was highest in Ayrshire and Arran and lowest in Grampian NHS board areas (44.9 and 28.5 per 1,000, respectively). The abortion rate was highest in Tayside and lowest in the Borders NHS board areas (30.6. and 13.6 per 1,000, respectively).
 
In the most deprived areas in 2006 the rate of teenage pregnancies in the under 16 age group was more than 4 times the rate in the least deprived areas (15.3  and 3.7 respectively). A similar pattern was also present in the under 18 age group, with 73.7 per 1,000 in the most deprived group and 17.4 per 1,000 in the least deprived.  Within the under 20 age group the rates were 99.2 within the most deprived groups and 23.7 per 1,000 within the least deprived.
 
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MAIN CONTACTS:

Etta Shanks
Maternity and Neonatal Team Leader
Tel: 0131 275 6761
Etta.Shanks@isd.csa.scot.nhs.uk

Dr Jim Chalmers (Consultant in Public Health Medicine)
Head of Programme
Women & Children's Health Information Programme
Tel: 0131 275 6136
Jim.Chalmers@isd.csa.scot.nhs.uk

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PRE-RELEASE ACCESS TO THIS PUBLICATION WAS GIVEN TO:

Sexual Health Team
Health & Wellbeing Directorate of the Scottish Government
NHS Board Chief Executives
Directors of Public Health
 
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HISTORY OF THIS PUBLICATION:

Last Published: 24/10/2007
Next Due: 30/06/09
Data Avaliable Since: 1983 using SMR01/02
From 2007 - using birth and stillbirth registration data from the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) and data from the statutory Abortion Act statistics (AAS)

 


Main contact: Email Etta Shanks