| Revised Numbers
and Rates of Teen Births and Pregnancies for 1997-1999 The numbers and rates
of Arizona's teen births and pregnancies for 1997-1999 were revised in May
2001 and differ from those previously published (see attached tables). The
determination of teenage motherhood is based on mother's age at her last
birthday. Since mother's age is not reported on the birth certificate, it had
been computer-generated from the mother's date of birth and child's date of
birth by the Information Technology developers of ADHS birth certificate
databases. Our re-examination proved that some of the births in 1997-1999 were
misallocated into the next highest mother's age category rather than into the
next lowest (a mother who is 19 years and 8 months old is still 19 - not 20 -
years old at the time of her child's birth). The revision reflects correction
for undercounting of births to teens. Beginning in January 2000, mother's age
is no longer a computer-generated field in the birth database. The user
calculates it. The following data tables are available in the Appendix:
A Teen
births by race/ethnicity
B Teen
birth rates by race/ethnicity
C Teen
births by county of residence
D Teen
birth rates by county of residence
E Teen
pregnancies by race/ethnicity
F Teen
pregnancy rates by race/ethnicity
G Teen
pregnancies by county of residence
H Teen
pregnancy rates by county of residence
Prepared and made Web-ready
by:
Christopher K. Mrela, Ph.D., Assistant Registrar of Vital Statistics,
Trentham Coe, Senior Research Data Analyst |
