Pueblo County teen birth rate is lowest it has ever been
Between access and a united message, the city-county health department is reporting birth rates dropping 64 percent in eight years.
By Ashleigh Hollowell
Three hundred forty eight. That was the number of teen births in Pueblo County in 2009. Now, six years and multiple countywide efforts later, teen birth rates have dropped by 64 percent.
Based on data available to the Pueblo City-County Health department this is the lowest the birth rate has ever been for the county.
Pueblo’s teen pregnancy prevention program has been hailed the most successful in the nation. From 2009 to 2013 Pueblo’s teen birth rate dropped 40 percent.
But that success was in jeopardy when the Colorado legislature halted funding to the Colorado Family Planning Initiative in April 2015, PULP previously reported.
That left the Pueblo City-County Health Department with fewer resources. The department had to rely on their remaining available stock of long acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) like IUDs and birth control implants to combat unplanned pregnancies.
After the legislature halted funding, organizations statewide stepped up and pledged $2 million in temporary funding — which has kept LARCs accessible. But it has been a clear and concise message from different partnering organizations that the health department is talking about.
The Pueblo City-County Health Department partnered with local organizations such as United Way mentoring, school districts and both Pueblo Community College and Colorado State University-Pueblo to implement programs and distribute a standardized message on the issue throughout the community.
“Our community has been working together and so youth is hearing same message and it’s now a normalized message about sexual health,” said Sarah Joseph, public information officer at Pueblo City-County Health Department. “They aren’t hearing different things from different places.”
“Delivering a correct and accurate message to youth allows them to make informed and healthy decisions,” added Alexis Romero, health promotion specialist at Pueblo City-County Health Department.
Practices and tactics to lower teen pregnancy began in 1990 when Pueblo was ranked second in the state for highest teen pregnancy rate with help from a $1 million grant provided to the city by the Colorado Trust, a health equity foundation that works with nonprofit organizations in counties throughout the state to enhance health conditions for Coloradans.
However, according to Joseph, after seeing that no one was really working together on the issue the Colorado Trust foundation withdrew the funding.
Then, in 2009, there was a turning point. The same year there were 348 recorded teen births in Pueblo County, Joseph said from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation gave money to two states, Colorado and Missouri, to purchase the LARCs.
This allowed health departments statewide, including the Pueblo City-County Health Department, to distribute LARCs free or for a very low price.
“By state law, we cannot deny service and we cannot tell parents. So, when we do have very young clients a specialist will talk to them about why they’re in there. Have they talked to anybody close to them in their family? Do they have someone in their family they can talk to? And we ask what activities they’re engaging in that would lead them to the clinic,” Joseph said.
After the implementation of positive youth development programs and sexual health and safety informational programs in local middle and high schools, according to Joseph, the use of clinic resources increased “…slightly, as youth also visited their own provider, Pueblo Community Health Center, and School Wellness Centers to inquire about LARCS and their sexual health.”
Pueblo City-County Health Department also offers a service known as Go Ask Tara that allows anyone to anonymously text or email questions any hour of the day regarding sexual health. Replies are received within 24 hours and given by health professionals.
“Our goal is to continue and build on foundation we have laid out,” Romero said.
Pueblo remained second in state for highest teen pregnancy until the early 2000s. Today it doesn’t even make the top five.
In the most recent Community Health Improvement Plan survey, the community did not identify teen pregnancy as a top priority to address anymore as they had in the 2013–2017 plan. However, for the 2018–2022 plan obesity, mental health and substance abuse were identified to work on mediating next.
Joseph and Romero said that unplanned pregnancies in women between the ages of 19–24 will be one of Pueblo City-County Health Department’s next major focuses.
Between 2013 and 2014, the percentage statewide of unplanned pregnancies in this age group was 58.3 percent and in Pueblo it was much higher at 79.4 percent according to data provided by Joseph.
For more information about Pueblo County health and resources visit: www.county.pueblo.org/government/county/pueblo-city-county-health-department.
A version of this story originally appeared in Notified, click the banner for more news:
