A multi-year county study focused on reducing teenage pregnancy among Hispanics began this week, as new statistics show a gap between pregnancy rates for Hispanic teens and others has widened.

The study, which began Monday at 10 schools with 1,000 Hispanic teenagers, is a collaboration between Identity, an organization that supports Latino youth in Montgomery County, and the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.

Students will be tracked for three years, with 500 serving as the study’s control group. They will be provided with case management services, informal group sessions, and message reinforcement with social media, in an attempt to determine which practices work best in reducing teen pregnancy. The project is funded by a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Adolescent Health.

“There’s very little out there that is evidence-based that shows what works, particularly for Latino youth,” Susan Wood, a George Washington University professor participating in the study, said at a County Council joint committee meeting last week. “And we were one of the few that came in with that particular focus.”

The joint meeting of the council’s Health and Human Services and Education committees also reviewed reports of the birth rates for 15- to 17-year olds in the county from 2007 through 2009. According to the report, the birth rate per 1,000 individuals for Hispanics (39.7) was nearly quadruple the rate for white teens (10.6 per 1,000) and significantly higher than the rate for blacks (14.9 per 1,000). The birth rate did represent a slight decline from 2005-07, when it was 41.6.

From 1996-98, the birth rate for Hispanic teens was 33.3 per 1,000 individuals, while for blacks the rate was 25.5 and for whites it was 9.8.

The birth rate for all county residents age 15 to 19 was 20.3 per 1,000, nearly half the national average (39.1).

In fiscal 2011, there were 306 pregnancies among Montgomery County Public Schools students managed by school nurses, including pregnancies that carried over from the previous year, compared with 296 in fiscal 2006, the county’s Department of Health and Human Services reported. Of the 170 teens in public schools reporting a pregnancy in fiscal 2011, 110 stayed in school and 38 graduated, while 22 dropped out.

Among the 189 parenting students in public schools last year, 125 were Hispanic.

“I don’t think we can dismiss that it is quite striking, and it’s a national issue as well,” said Councilwoman Nancy Navarro (D-Dist. 4) of Silver Spring.

But she said the core problem is not that teen pregnancy is more acceptable among Hispanics, but that pop culture has in general prompted some teens, for example, to form pacts in which they arranged to get pregnant as a group. Navarro also highlighted the links between poverty and teen pregnancy.

‘Our job is to figure out a way to get the information that we need to get out there,” she said.

aujifusa@gazette.net