Parent preference for school based teen pregnancy prevention programming: A sample of hispanic parents

Teen pregnancy has been identified as one of ten winnable battles by the CDC. As part of an ongoing effort to increase the availability of evidence based teen pregnancy prevention programming, the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District (Metro Health), in collaboration with a local school district, and the University of Texas School of Public Health (UTSPH), endeavored to gather information about parent preferences for school based sexual health and teen pregnancy prevention programming. The target school district reported second highest teen birth rate in Bexar County for females ages 15 to 19 at 89.7/1,000 births, twice the national average. In the Fall of 2012, a survey was distributed to a sample of 1,377 parents in grades 3- 12. The survey was attached to the first report card of the school year and returned to the classroom teacher. Close to 40% (548) of surveys were returned with 486 surveys included in the final sample. The majority of respondents were female (88.3%) and Hispanic (97.1%). One quarter (24.3%) of surveys were completed in Spanish. Most parents (69.4%) had less than a college education. Over 95% of respondents supported the provision of teen pregnancy prevention in middle school (95.1%) and high school (96.1%). A clear majority of respondents favored Abstinence Plus (72.2%) programming. This is one of the few surveys specifically describing the teen pregnancy prevention preferences of Hispanic and Spanish speaking parents.