Factors associated with young adults' future pregnancy expectations

While much progress has been made to reduce teen pregnancy in the U.S., rates of unplanned pregnancy among older teens (aged 18-19 years) and young adults (aged 20-29 years) remain exceedingly high. In 2009, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy commissioned a study, conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, to examine contraceptive use and pregnancy prevention among unmarried young adults in the U.S. We conducted a secondary analysis of this data using the entire weighted sample (n=1,800) of unmarried men and women (aged 18-29 years) to identify factors associated with having a future pregnancy expectation (likelihood of getting pregnant/getting partner pregnant in the next year). We employed multivariate logistic regression to examine the association between having a future pregnancy expectation and socio-demographic, personal, and environmental factors, and future contraceptive use. Overall, 31.2% of young adults expected that they/their partner would get pregnant in the next year. In multivariate analyses, young adults who were uninsured, dissatisfied with their current contraceptive method, believed that using birth control was morally wrong, did not have the information they needed to avoid an unplanned pregnancy, indicated that avoiding a pregnancy was somewhat/not important, and reported a high likelihood of having sex without using any method of birth control in the next 3 months were at increased odds of having a future pregnancy expectation. Additional research is needed to understand why young adults are dissatisfied with their current contraceptive method and to identify information needs in order to develop appropriate interventions for this population.