Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 28, 1994 TAG: 9404280229
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER Note: below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
''It's still outrageously high, though,'' Dr. Molly Rutledge, acting director of the city Health Department, told the 20-member group. ''We're still well over two times the state average.''
The rate went from 176 pregnancies per 1,000 15- to 19-year-olds in 1991 to 147 pregnancies for that group in 1992. Roanoke ranked No. 1 in the state in 1991. Roanoke likely will remain in the top 10, Rutledge said.
Roanoke's rate for low-birthweight babies born to teen mothers also is twice the state average, she said.
"Teen pregnancy is the No. 1 perpetuator of the poverty cycle and the No. 1 intervention point for turning the poverty cycle around." Rutledge said. She said 60 percent of the incarcerated males in Virginia were sons of teen-age mothers,
As other task forces have done, the group likely will spend up to a year studying the issue before making recommendations to the city manager, said the city's director of of human development, Glenn Radcliffe.
The group includes doctors, social workers, educators, ministers, business representatives and a teen mother. Representatives from Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge, which advocates abortion rights, and the Crisis Pregnancy Center, which strongly opposes abortion, also are on the task force.
Citizen interest was so great that, "If we'd tried to put everybody who was interested on the committee, we would've needed to hold the meetings in the civic center," Radcliffe said.The College of Human Resources at Virginia Tech will help the group gather information on what other communities have done to combat teen pregnancy as well as conduct interviews with Roanoke teens.
The task force agreed to start by gathering information on and evaluating prevention efforts. Rutledge said the group also may be responsible for deciding how to distribute the $350,000 to $400,000 the state recently allotted for teen pregnancy prevention.
Dr. Donald Stern, who left his position as Health Department director to work in Richmond earlier this year, believes a multifaceted approach aimed at stabilizing families must be adopted.
"I don't think it's by chance" that Roanoke's rate dropped 20 percent in 1992, Stern said in a telephone interview. "I think it's probably a number of different efforts incrementally affecting teen pregnancy."
Stern cited such prevention programs as the Teen Outreach Program for at-risk kids; For Males Only, which targets at-risk, inner-city males; and the Health Department's Resource Mothers, which works as a support system for teen moms with the goal of preventing subsequent pregnancies.
"Social services, family life education, a push toward abstinence and male responsibility - it takes all of these things to make a dent," Stern said.
by CNB