Health promotion is more important than ever when it comes to solving problems with public health. It is all about giving individuals more say in their health care and giving them tools to make positive changes. This strategy shifts the emphasis away from changing people’s actions and toward changing larger systems in society and the natural world. Health promotion is essential to public health because it helps communities, organizations, and people face and overcome health issues. Teenage pregnancy is one public health issue. Pregnancy among teenagers rises when women are denied autonomy over their sexual and reproductive lives. This paper aims to discuss teen pregnancy and highlight factors favoring its occurrence and a hypothetical health promotion plan to address this issue. Teenage mothers need information and support to make informed choices about their health and futures, including access to quality healthcare and sex education.
Scenario
Mary, a sixteen-year-old girl, gets into a romantic relationship. According to Mary, all her female friends had boyfriends, and thus she would not be the odd one out. The two hang along in their relationship, and within eight months, Mary gets pregnant. According to Mary, inadequate reproductive and sexual education contributes to many teenagers getting pregnant. As a result of the pregnancy, Mary drops out of school to nurse her pregnancy and the unborn child. Apart from keeping her away from school, this condition exposes Mary to several adverse outcomes, including being a single mother and living in poverty.
Demographic Data
Teenagers compose of individuals between 13 years and 19 years. This paper takes special interest in evaluating teenage pregnancy among Hispanic Americans. At 18.9 percent, they are the second largest racial or ethnic group in America, behind non-Hispanic whites. There has been a steady decline in the teen birthrate in the United States, with 2019 decreasing to 16.7 births per 1,000 females (Liang et al., 2019). Teen birth rates in 2019 were more than twice as high for non-Hispanic Black at 25.3%, and Hispanic adolescents at 12.5% for non-Hispanic White teens.
Factors Contributing to Increase in Teenage Pregnancy and Benefits of a Health
Promotion Educational Plan
Hispanic adolescent pregnancy and birth rates are disproportionately high, mostly due to their low socioeconomic status (Zori et al., 2023). Similarly, Hispanic teenagers may not think the challenges they encounter as parents at that age are any more significant than the challenges they confront as members of a minority group. However, during economic stability, adolescent pregnancy rates among the poor fell, indicating that young people would wait to have children if given a chance. Pregnancy rates were shown to be lower in households where parents were very supportive. However, low-socioeconomic status concerns, including family breakdown and parental imprisonment, may impede the provision of such help. Hispanic youth with low levels of parental supervision are more likely to engage in sexually hazardous conduct and have children at a young age.
Health promotion activities would increase access to contraception. This can be achieved by intensifying reproductive health education in schools and remotely. Remote reproductive health education can be done via posters in public areas and the issuance of informative fliers or booklets in schools and public offices. A holistic health promotion incorporates teenagers, parents, religious leaders, and the education system. Parents should be free with their children to discuss and guide them on sexual reproduction.
Health Promotion Goals
Health promotion initiatives aim to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy among Hispanic populations by at least 10% annually. Using a sociogram, the key stakeholders can identify the demographic skewness of populations affected by teen pregnancy and place equal effort to contain the situation. Access to such information effectively mobilizes people and marshals them toward a new view of things. It is vital to address cultural and economic factors that facilitate teen pregnancy. Sexual and reproductive health education among the affected populations should be available to everyone (Plesons et al., 2019). This way, it becomes a community burden to contain the issue.
Potential Learning Needs and Group’s Current Behaviors
The greatest need for this population is building awareness. Through integrated sexual and reproductive health, teenagers, parents, and society are empowered to act against teenage pregnancy. This endeavor calls for collaboration among healthcare providers, religious leaders, and the education sector. The SMART goals here are to reduce the prevalence of teenage pregnancy by 10% every year, to promote the attainment of quality health outcomes and avoid health complications like fistula associated with teenage pregnancy, and to achieve healthy births for all. Most children born by teen mothers are often underweight, making it a goal for this initiative to achieve healthy births for all. This is achievable through collaboration among responsible stakeholders.
The individual behavior of this population is engagement in irresponsible sexual affairs facilitated majorly by low economic status. Through education, this population is enlightened on the negative outcomes associated with teenage pregnancy and how it affects their social and economic development. Thorough awareness and increased education for the population is effectively prepared to address the challenge.
Conclusion
The financial, social, and health expenses of parenting a child at a young age are high. It is well documented that teen mothers have a far higher educational failure rate and career difficulties. Children born to teenage mothers are more likely to have health problems, be institutionalized, die as infants or young children, and grow up to become teenage mothers themselves. For Hispanic youth, alone or with their families, to make the healthiest, most educated choices possible, there has to be a balance between cultural awareness and the availability of a wide range of resources.
References
Liang, M., Simelane, S., Fortuny Fillo, G., Chalasani, S., Weny, K., Salazar Canelos, P., Jenkins, L., Moller, A., Chandra-Mouli, V., Say, L., Michielsen, K., Engel, D. M. C., & Snow, R. (2019). The state of adolescent sexual and reproductive health. Journal of Adolescent Health, 65(6), S3-S15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.09.015
Plesons, M., Cole, C. B., Hainsworth, G., Avila, R., Va Eceéce Biaukula, K., Husain, S., Janušonytė, E., Mukherji, A., Nergiz, A. I., Phaladi, G., Ferguson, B. J., Philipose, A., Dick, B., Lane, C., Herat, J., Engel, D. M. C., Beadle, S., Hayes, B., & Chandra-Mouli, V. (2019). Forward, together: A Collaborative path to comprehensive adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights in our time. Journal of Adolescent Health, 65(6), S51-S62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.09.009
Zori, G., Walker, A. F., King, L., Duncan, R. P., Dayton, K., & Foti, S. (2023). The impact of state policy on adverse teen sexual health outcomes in the United States: A scoping review. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 20(1), 160–176. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-022-00770-3
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