LatinaLista — The Latina teen pregnancy rate has long been a dismal statistic for the Latino community. In fact, the problem — 52 percent of Latinas get pregnant before the age of 20 — is of such enormous magnitude that it can’t be handled/covered by just one organization or regional community.
This is the kind of problem that needs a shared community response — and it finally has one.
The National Council of La Raza, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and other national and local organizations that serve large numbers of Latino youth have pledged to mobilize the Latino community to prevent teen pregnancy by signing the
National Consensus Statement on Latino Teen Pregnancy Prevention.
By signing the Consensus statement, the organizations and individuals agree to “actively promote research, programs and policies that are necessary to creating an environment that will lead to a sustainable reduction of Latino teen pregnancy.”
“The good news is that rates of teen pregnancy and childbearing in the Latino community have declined dramatically over the past two decades, showing that progress is possible on a challenging social issue,” said Ruthie Flores, Senior Manager of The National Campaign’s Latino Initiative. “The bad news is that these impressive declines have stalled out in recent years. This new effort focusing on too-early pregnancy and childbearing in the Latino community could not be timelier.”
