Forty-nine percent of 15–17-year-old women in Kingston, Jamaica, who were interviewed to identify risk factors for teen pregnancy reported having experienced sexual coercion or violence, and one-third stated that they had been persuaded or forced to participate in their first sexual experience. Though young women who had experienced sexual violence were not more likely than those who had not to be pregnant, these alarming numbers reflect the widespread prevalence of gender-based violence in Jamaica.

The study also found that 94% of the pregnant teens interviewed reported that their pregnancies were unintended. These findings, suggest authors Joy Noel Baumgartner of Family Health International et al., demonstrate a strong need for increased education and services for young people in Jamaica to help reduce the country’s high rates of unplanned teen pregnancy and gender-based violence.

Efforts to empower young women are key to addressing these problems, according to the authors. The study found a significant link between unequal relationships and pregnancy risk: Compared with their peers who had never been pregnant, adolescents who were pregnant were more likely to have had a first sexual partner who was at least five years older, to have low self-esteem and to believe contraception is solely a woman’s responsibility. Among teens who were pregnant, those who had first had sex by age 14 were more likely to have had two or more partners than those who had first sex at a later age.

In addition, pregnant young women were less likely to report having used contraceptives the first time they had sex than were teens who had never been pregnant. And among the pregnant teens who reported having used contraceptives at the time they became pregnant, 87% said that they had relied on condoms. To help reduce pregnancy risk, the authors recommend that programs encourage teens to delay sex (if it is under their control) until they find a job or finish school, as well as educate sexually active young women on more reliable, hormonal contraceptive methods that can be used in combination with condoms.

The study, "The Influence of Early Sexual Debut and Sexual Violence on Adolescent Pregnancy: A Matched Case-Control Study in Jamaica," appears in the March 2009 issue of International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, formerly known as International Family Planning Perspectives. The name change, which coincides with the beginning of the journal’s 35th year of publication, was made to better reflect the broad range of topics now covered in the journal.