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Adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy: what more can be learned through further analysis of the demographic and health surveys in the Philippines?

BACKGROUND: Adolescent pregnancy poses risks to the life of a young mother and her baby, and can affect their health, educational and future employment outcomes. In many low- and middle-income countries like the Philippines, the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program is among the most reliable...

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Autores principales: Habito, Christine Marie, Vaughan, Cathy, Morgan, Alison
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6701073/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31429733
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7451-4
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author Habito, Christine Marie
Vaughan, Cathy
Morgan, Alison
author_facet Habito, Christine Marie
Vaughan, Cathy
Morgan, Alison
author_sort Habito, Christine Marie
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Adolescent pregnancy poses risks to the life of a young mother and her baby, and can affect their health, educational and future employment outcomes. In many low- and middle-income countries like the Philippines, the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program is among the most reliable and easily accessible sources of demographic and health data for researchers, development workers, and policymakers. Data on adolescent sexual and reproductive health (SRH) are often limited, but in the absence of other sources, there is room to make the most of the adolescent health data gathered by the DHS. The aim of this study is to explore what more can be learned about adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy through the further analysis of demographic and health data, using DHS data from the Philippines as an example. METHODS: This study conducted trend analysis of DHS data over three survey rounds (2003, 2008 and 2013) to explore the context of adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy over time. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression were then used to study associations between adolescent pregnancy experience and selected demographic, socioeconomic and SRH variables using data from the 2013 DHS. RESULTS: This study found that between 2003 and 2013, proportions of Filipino young women experiencing adolescent sexual initiation and adolescent pregnancy have increased. Multivariate logistic regression affirmed the protective effect of education and belonging to higher wealth quintiles on the risk of adolescent pregnancy. Ever use of contraception was positively associated with adolescent pregnancy but is likely indicative of use after a prior pregnancy, and/or other factors relating to improper/inconsistent contraceptive use. CONCLUSIONS: In the absence of reliable, easily accessible data on adolescent SRH, the DHS data can provide important insights about adolescent reproductive transitions such as sexual initiation and first pregnancy. However, there are limited variables in the datasets that could proxy for other important social determinants which prior studies have linked to adolescent SRH outcomes. There remains a need for timely and targeted collection of quantitative and qualitative data on adolescent SRH that can guide programming and policy intended to foster positive health outcomes during this crucial transition period to adulthood. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-7451-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-67010732019-08-26 Adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy: what more can be learned through further analysis of the demographic and health surveys in the Philippines? Habito, Christine Marie Vaughan, Cathy Morgan, Alison BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Adolescent pregnancy poses risks to the life of a young mother and her baby, and can affect their health, educational and future employment outcomes. In many low- and middle-income countries like the Philippines, the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program is among the most reliable and easily accessible sources of demographic and health data for researchers, development workers, and policymakers. Data on adolescent sexual and reproductive health (SRH) are often limited, but in the absence of other sources, there is room to make the most of the adolescent health data gathered by the DHS. The aim of this study is to explore what more can be learned about adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy through the further analysis of demographic and health data, using DHS data from the Philippines as an example. METHODS: This study conducted trend analysis of DHS data over three survey rounds (2003, 2008 and 2013) to explore the context of adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy over time. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression were then used to study associations between adolescent pregnancy experience and selected demographic, socioeconomic and SRH variables using data from the 2013 DHS. RESULTS: This study found that between 2003 and 2013, proportions of Filipino young women experiencing adolescent sexual initiation and adolescent pregnancy have increased. Multivariate logistic regression affirmed the protective effect of education and belonging to higher wealth quintiles on the risk of adolescent pregnancy. Ever use of contraception was positively associated with adolescent pregnancy but is likely indicative of use after a prior pregnancy, and/or other factors relating to improper/inconsistent contraceptive use. CONCLUSIONS: In the absence of reliable, easily accessible data on adolescent SRH, the DHS data can provide important insights about adolescent reproductive transitions such as sexual initiation and first pregnancy. However, there are limited variables in the datasets that could proxy for other important social determinants which prior studies have linked to adolescent SRH outcomes. There remains a need for timely and targeted collection of quantitative and qualitative data on adolescent SRH that can guide programming and policy intended to foster positive health outcomes during this crucial transition period to adulthood. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-7451-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-08-20 /pmc/articles/PMC6701073/ /pubmed/31429733 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7451-4 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Habito, Christine Marie
Vaughan, Cathy
Morgan, Alison
Adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy: what more can be learned through further analysis of the demographic and health surveys in the Philippines?
title Adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy: what more can be learned through further analysis of the demographic and health surveys in the Philippines?
title_full Adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy: what more can be learned through further analysis of the demographic and health surveys in the Philippines?
title_fullStr Adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy: what more can be learned through further analysis of the demographic and health surveys in the Philippines?
title_full_unstemmed Adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy: what more can be learned through further analysis of the demographic and health surveys in the Philippines?
title_short Adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy: what more can be learned through further analysis of the demographic and health surveys in the Philippines?
title_sort adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy: what more can be learned through further analysis of the demographic and health surveys in the philippines?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6701073/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31429733
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7451-4
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