Vital Stats: 11.1% – Percentage of pregnancies among females aged 15-19. (Source: Center for Disease Control)

by David Cruz 

Recognizing the high number of teen pregnancies throughout the Bronx, the New York City Health Department has launched an advertising blitz to help reverse teen pregnancy figures. 

The campaign, dubbed “Your Talk,” urges parents and teens to start the conversation on sexual responsibility and STD prevention. The DOH has taken its message to the city Department of Education (DOE), nonprofit agencies and to the streets, with ads slated  for at ten bus shelters in the South Bronx come next month. It’s there where the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation can be found. The initiative is intended to simply spark the conversation, any conversation.

“We’re not necessarily emphasizing any specific talk, we recognize that everybody has their own style and everyone has different values on sex and sexuality,” said Dionna Walters, the Director of the Bronx Teens Connection. “So what we want to emphasize that there are resources here, we do have resources.”

Among them is access to contraceptives without parental or partner consent, according to Walters. There’s also Teens In NYC app, which searches for available clinics in a community.

The latest outreach is part of the continued fight to reduce teen pregnancies by Bronx Teens Connection, a federally funded program launched in 2012 to curb those figures. It’s since partnered with the DOE to implement a sex education curriculum for ninth and tenth graders that’s later analyzed for its effectiveness. The numbers have contributed to a gradual decline of teen pregnancies in the Bronx.

But stats still show the Bronx with the highest percentage of teen pregnancies. Its latest data showed there were 84.4 percent of pregnancies for every 1,000 females aged 15-19 in 2012, compared to the city which saw 59.9 percent of pregnancies per 1,000 females aged 15-19. The year before, there were 96.6 pregnancies for every 1,000 Bronx females aged 15-19. The issue of unintended pregnancies is compounded by many pregnant teens living in impoverished communities.

“The highest teen pregnancy rates correlate with the highest concentrations of poverty,” said Waters, adding lack of services and awareness of sexual health are to blame. The pregnancy rate is also known to contribute to the high school dropout rate in the Bronx.

The latest advertising outreach campaign has a price tag of $94,000.