Why it’s important

As the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy explains, “Teen pregnancy is closely linked to a host of other critical social issues — poverty and income, overall child well-being, out-of-wedlock births, responsible fatherhood, health issues, education, child welfare, and other risky behavior. There are also substantial public costs associated with adolescent childbearing.”

Quick facts

• According to the most recent data, from 2008, Wisconsin’s teen pregnancy rate is the 11th lowest in the U.S.
• Wisconsin has the 2nd lowest teen pregnancy rate among the seven Midwestern states tracked by BadgerStat, behind Minnesota.
• Some counties in Wisconsin have teen pregnancy rates substantially above the state average, including Milwaukee’s rate which is double the state average.

Details

Q1: How does Wisconsin’s teen pregnancy rate compare to the Midwest and U.S. averages?

• Wisconsin’s teenage pregnancy rate is below the Midwest and the U.S. averages.
• In 2008, the most recent year of data, Wisconsin’s rate was 31 births per 1000 teenaged girls compared to 35 across the Midwest and 42 in the U.S. as a whole.

Q2: How does Wisconsin’s teen pregnancy rate compare to specific Midwestern states?

• Wisconsin’s teenage pregnancy rate is the second lowest among Midwest states, behind Minnesota’s. Michigan and Iowa have rates just above Wisconsin.

Q3: What are the teen pregnancy rates in Wisconsin’s ten largest counties?

• Among Wisconsin’s ten largest counties, the highest teenage pregnancy rate is in Milwaukee, the most populous Wisconsin county. Its rate is over  double that of the state.
• Among the ten largest counties, Waukesha has the lowest teen pregnancy rate at nine births per thousand teen girls, about 70% less than the state average. The second lowest rate is Dane county, Wisconsin’s second largest county.
• As an aside, for those not familiar with every county, the largest city within each county is in parenthesis: Milwaukee (Milwaukee), Dane (Madison), Waukesha (Waukesha), Brown (Green Bay), Racine (Racine), Outagamie (Appleton), Winnebago (Oshkosh), Rock (Janesville), Kenosha (Kenosha), and Marathon (Wausau).

Q4:  Which U.S. states have lower teen pregnancy rates than Wisconsin’s?

Sources

Data on teen pregnancy rates are from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy which, in turn, compile the data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The quote in the “Why it’s important” section is from this page of the National Campaign’s website.

Data on teen pregnancy rates among Wisconsin counties are from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’s WISH database. WISH stands for Wisconsin Interactive Statistics on Health.