Teen Birth Rate by Year, Girls Age 15-19, New Mexico and U.S., 1990 to 2020

Why Is This Important?

Babies born to teenaged mothers have a higher risk of low birthweight, preterm birth, and infant mortality. Children born to teens are more likely to grow up in poverty, grow up in a single-parent family, and have low attachment to and performance in school. Those children are also more likely to be placed in foster care and to be incarcerated in adolescence, and more likely to drop out of high school, to become teenaged parents, and to be unemployed or underemployed as an adult. Teen parents, both boys and girls, tend to have lower educational achievement, largely because of the demands of early parenting. By age 22, only half of teen mothers have completed high school, compared with 90% of their peers who did not give birth, and teen fathers have a 25 to 30 percent lower probability of graduating from high school.

Definition

Teen Birth Rate is the number of births to females in the age group per 1,000 of the age group female population.

Data Sources

• Birth Certificate Data, Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS), Epidemiology and Response Division, New Mexico Department of Health.
  (https://www.nmhealth.org/about/erd/bvrhs/vrp/)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC WONDER Online Database
  (http://wonder.cdc.gov)
• New Mexico Population Estimates: University of New Mexico, Geospatial and Population Studies (GPS) Program.
  (http://gps.unm.edu/)

How the Measure is Calculated

Data Issues

• Birth Certificate Data

  Birth certificate information is submitted electronically by hospital medical records staff who use standard mother and facility worksheets and medical charts to collect the needed information. Training of hospital staff is provided by the Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics (BVRHS). The birth certificate information is reviewed by BVRHS for completeness and consistency with state law and NMDOH and national guidelines. BVRHS will contact hospital staff for clarification of missing, inconsistent or incorrect entries. CDC's National Center for Health Statistics provides feedback to BVRHS on data quality and the NMDOH provides feedback to the hospitals to improve data quality and training.

• New Mexico Population Estimates

  All population estimates apply to July 1 of the selected year. These estimates are considered the most accurate estimates for the state of New Mexico and should match those found on the University of New Mexico Geospatial and Population Studies website. Estimates include decimal fractions. Census tract population estimates were summed to produce County and Small Area population estimates. Population estimate totals may vary due to rounding. Population estimates for previous years are occasionally revised as new information becomes available. When publishing trend data, always be sure that your rates for earlier years match current rates on NM-IBIS that have been calculated with the most up-to-date population estimates.

Health Topic Pages Related to: Teen Birth Rate

• Economic Stability
• Education
• Mothers and Infants