Teenage pregnancy rates in the United States are significantly higher in comparison to other industrialized western nations. A study revealed that in the United States, teenage childbearing was more common (22%) than in Great Britain (15%), Canada (11%), France (6%) and Sweden (4%) (Darroch, Singh, & Frost, 2001) . Teenage pregnancy in the United States was at its peak in 1990. However, by 2011, the rate had declined by more than half to rest at 562,000 pregnancies for women below the age of 20 years. By 2015, teenage pregnancy rates were at a record low with 229,715 babies born to women below 20 years of age, representing an 8% drop from 2014 (CDC, 2015) . The plummeting of United States’ teenage pregnancy rates has been attributed to various factors, chief among them being increased health education.
Through increased health education, especially among the female population, there is an increase in the use of contraception, abstinence and increased understanding of sex education resources. Various initiatives targeted towards providing sex and health education have been executed in the United States courtesy of state and federal governments. One of the strategies adopted by states to reduce rates of unplanned pregnancy among young adults and older teens is provision of relevant information to college students. In this regard, Mississippi was the forerunner in adopting legislation requiring college student to educated about unplanned pregnancy prevention in 2014, while Arkansas closely followed in 2015 with a similar legislation (Power to Decide, 2018) .
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Colleges especially present an instrumental avenue for combating unplanned teenage pregnancy through provision of sex and health education and have adopted various strategies to achieve this goal. One of such strategies is the incorporating useful information about prevention of unwanted teen pregnancies into different student support services such as first year experience and orientation. The National Campaign in collaboration with college faculties has for instance developed free online lessons in Preventing Unplanned Pregnancy and Completing College (The National Campaign, 2017) . Colleges have also been connecting students to information resources and health services which include access to effective birth control both on and off campus. Health centers and colleges are forging collaborative relationships in which college staff refer students to such centers for information and various contraception. Clinic personnel in these collaborative relationships may occasionally visit the colleges to avail information to students and erect stands which act as resource on contraception (The National Campaign, 2015) .
In addition to legislation to provide health and sex education to college students, various programs to reduce teenage pregnancy rates have also been implemented in the United States. One such program is the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Program under The Office of Adolescent Health (OAH). This program provides grants to various organization utilizing evidence based models to curb the high rates of teenage pregnancy such as the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP). TPP funds a wide variety of approaches, including abstinence education, programs for families, and positive youth development. As a consequence of federal funding of programs working to prevent teenage pregnancy inception in 2010 through the TPP program, teenage pregnancy rates have plummeted by 41% up until 2016 (The National Campaign, 2017) .
While the United States’ rates of pregnancy in teenagers remains greater than the rest of the western industrialized countries, it is evident that sex health education has decreased pregnancy rates in teenagers in the United States as indicated by statistics. Based on the statistical evidence of this reduction therefore, the provision of sex health education needs to be upheld and made more extensive besides receiving more funding from the various stakeholders.
References
CDC. (2015). Teen Pregnancy in the United States. Centre for Disease Control. Retrieved April 25, 2018, from https://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/index.htm
Darroch, J. E., Singh, S., & Frost, J. J. (2001). Differences in Teenage Pregnancy Rates Among Five Developed Countries: The Roles of Sexual Activity and Contraceptive Use. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 33 (6), 244-281. Retrieved April 25, 2018
Power to Decide. (2018). State Policies to Educate College Students about Unplanned Pregnancy. Retrieved April 25, 2018, from Power to Decide: https://powertodecide.org/system/files/resources/primary-download/Pregnancy.pdf
The National Campaign. (2015, July). Unplanned Pregnancy Among College Students and Strategies to Address it . Retrieved April 25, 2018, from Power to Decide: https://powertodecide.org/sites/default/files/resources/primary-download/briefly-unplanned-pregnancy-college.pdf
The National Campaign. (2017). It’s About Evidence: What You Need To Know About The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. Retrieved April 25, 2018, from Power to Decide: https://powertodecide.org/sites/default/files/resources/primary-download/its-about-evidence.pdf
