219178 Adverse Childhood Experience and Teen Pregnancy

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Hillary Turner, MPH , School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Christina Harris, BA , College of Medicine, Howard University, Washington, DC
Adebowale Popoola, MD , Child Psychiatry, Washington Adventist Hospital, Rockville, MD
Nicholas Ialongo, PhD , Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
Harolyn Belcher, MD , Kennedy Krieger Family Center/Johns Hopkins Department of Pediatrics, Kennedy Krieger Insitute, Baltimore, MD
  
Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) including child physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, experiencing or witnessing community violence and caregiver with mental health disorder, substance abuse problems, and/or incarceration have been associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes (Anda et al., 2006). This study was designed to examine the association between ACE and teen pregnancy in urban youth. Data for the study was acquired from the 19-20 year follow-up (mean 19.6 years, SD 1.1) of a longitudinal cohort (N=1715). Odds (OR) of a teenage pregnancy increased per ACE, ranging from an OR of 1.73 (95% CI: 1.15-2.59) for two ACE to OR of 6.86 (CI: 2.04-23.02) for more than six ACE. History of sexual victimization (OR: 2.29, 95% CI: 1.51-3.46), exchanging items for sex (OR: 2.06, 95% CI: 1.04-4.10), physical abuse (OR: 1.50, 95% CI: 1.16-1.93), and witnessing beatings (OR: 1.68, 95% CI: 1.34-2.11) or shootings (OR: 2.26, 95% CI: 1.72-2.97) in their lifetime increased the odds of teen pregnancy. The odds of pregnancy decreased when youth experienced a beating (OR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.58-0.94) and witnessed shooting (OR: 0.66, 95% CI: 0.51-0.87) in the past year. ACE associated with increased odds for pregnancy remained statistically significant in an expanded logistic regression model using all measured ACE; however, the decreased odds of pregnancy associated with experiencing beating and witnessing shooting in the last year was no longer statistically significant. Overall, exposure to ACE increased the risk of experiencing a pregnancy during adolescence in a dose-response manner.

Learning Areas:
Epidemiology
Provision of health care to the public
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
1. Examine the associations between adverse childhood experiences and risk of teenage pregnancy

Keywords: Adolescent Health, Violence

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I conducted the data analysis and assisted in the development of the abstract.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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