<p>
I’m just curious. Do you know if the school district pays for these hospital services or if it comes out of the hospital’s budget as a community outreach program? I assume the professional services are free to the students but do they also provide the prescription medicines at no cost?</p>
<p>the prescription medicines as I posted earlier- need to be supplied by the student
The teen health centers are funded by a city levy and run by the county health organization
The clinic at my daughters school is sponsored by a local childrens hospital and a community clinic
I don’t think the services are free- but are probably sliding scale or through ins coverage- depending on what service you receive</p>
<p>EmeraldKity - Thanks for the quick reply. I remember you said students purchase their own contraceptives but I wasn’t sure if other prescriptions were treated differently.</p>
<p>I don’t know if they would usually have the nurses give them contraception- its more that they have to bring their medication to the clinic and have them hold it for them- there is a nursepractioner there and she could write prescriptions though- but I don’t think they stock medication</p>
<p>I was thinking of having the clinic hold my daughters asthma medicine in case she didn’t have it at school
some clinics might also give ADD medicine which sometimes has to be given through the day-
we haven’t really used this clinic much, although I did talk to the pyschologist quite a bit because I was concerned about my daughter and wanted to encourage her to get familiar with the clinic so she would have it as a resource.
They seemed very low key and helpful- even offer a yoga class after school which I thought was a great idea.</p>
<p>HH, I’m sure the numbers are Googable. </p>
<p>DRJ, I’m not a socialist at all but don’t find blind labels helpful in any event. However, I’ve absorbed deeply in my bones the notion that “all men are created equal” and “to promote the general welfare.” The idea that something like birth control should be variable based on geography, income, or local “community standards” is deeply repugnant to me. I really believe in the promise of America.</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>My D’s comment when I gave her a thumbnail of this thread: most kids are going to talk to their parents. Those who won’t usually have a damned good reason.</p>
<p>Got it in one.</p>
<p>TheDad,</p>
<p>I wasn’t calling you a socialist; I was questioning the accuracy of your statement. If what you said is true, that would make America a socialist nation. (We may be.) </p>
<p>I view “all men are created equal”, “general welfare”, and similar concepts as promises of equal opportunity and not as promises of equal results.</p>
<p>I don’t know. I tried various googles, but I couldn’t find anything meaningful. Also, I don’t know what “locales” you were talking about - was it Texas? Much of what I found is very biased (i.e. Planned Parenthood numbers are all about the failure of the abstinence approach, AFA and other conservative sites are all about the wonders of the abstinence approach) on one side or the other. I don’t really trust those numbers necessarily. I thought maybe you had access to some objective statistics (not being sarcastic).</p>
<p>Hereshoping:</p>
<p>I have not read this publication, but it would appear to have state-by state statistics.<br>
<a href=“http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/state_pregnancy_trends.pdf[/url]”>http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/state_pregnancy_trends.pdf</a></p>
<p>Another link I provided (powerpoint) used CA statistics.</p>
<p>Hope they help.</p>
<p>I think all you have to do to find numbers is look at pregnancy rates and compare to content of health education in schools</p>
<p>Texas for example has 2nd highest pregnancy rate in country for teens
That can probably be attributed to lack of accurate health information combined with an acceptance of teenage pregnancy in some communities.</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with helping teens gather information that they need to make their own decisions, whether it is to be abstinent until marriage, become a vegetarian or protect themselves from diseases that are transmitted by body fluid.</p>
<p>We need to give them accurate information- so they can make informed decisions, soon they will be adult voters, we owe it to them and to ourselves to make sure they have the abilty to consider opinons</p>
<p>Random musings - I skimmed through Marite’s tables.</p>
<p>The abortion rate is lowest in the states that are traditionally red states. The abortion rate is highest in Ma., NY, and DC (blue cities). Some of this is probably access to clinics; some of it might be social pressure. </p>
<p>I can’t help being sad that one crucial statistic is missing in those tables - rate of out-of-wedlock births. I think that Massachusetts leads the nation in %age of births that are out of wedlock. Now, this could be because the people there don’t feel the pressure to marry (can be a good thing). It could also be because the teenage pregnancies in red, rural states are to women who are already married when they get pregnant. I know a lot of people at my law school who got married and pregnant at age 18 or 19. Those would be “teenage pregancies” for the purposes of the stats, but it doesn’t tell the whole story - that the pregnancy was probably very wanted.</p>
<p>Just a few musings on a lovely Friday morning.</p>
<p>Mass has the 3rd lowest rate of teen pregnancy in the country.
MAss also has lowest divorce rate in country.
These marriages that began with a teenage pregnancy, are they going to be intact long enough to raise the child?</p>
<p>*Many Births Occurred to Teens Living in Poverty and to Unmarried Teens.</p>
<p>Compared to teens from higher income families, poor and low-income teens are somewhat more likely to be sexually active and somewhat less likely to use contraceptives or to use contraception successfully. Poor and low-income adolescents make up 38 percent of all women ages 15 to 19; yet, they account for 73 percent of all pregnancies in that age group.[19]
Nearly 60 percent of teens who become mothers are living in poverty at the time of the birth.[9]
Teenage mothers are much less likely than older women to receive timely prenatal care and are more likely to smoke during pregnancy. As a result of these and other factors, babies born to teenagers are more likely to be preterm and of low birth weight and are at greater risk of serious and long-term illness, of developmental delays, and of dying in the first year of life compared to infants of older mothers.[2]</p>
<p>Adolescent mothers are less likely to complete their education and are more likely to face limited career and economic opportunities compared to women whose first children are born after age 20.[13]</p>
<p>Both adult and teen women today are less likely to marry in response to a pregnancy than were earlier generations and are also less likely to choose abortion.[2]
In 2002, about one-fourth of all non-marital births occurred among teenagers.[16]
Non-marital birth rates were highest among women ages 20 to 24 and 25 to 29, followed by 18- to 19-year-old and 30- to 34-year-old women (71, 62, 59, and 41 per 1,000 women in the given age group, respectively). Teens ages 15 to 19 and 15 to 17 had lower non-marital birth rates (35 and 21, respectively).[16]*
<a href=“http://advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fsprechd.htm[/url]”>http://advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fsprechd.htm</a></p>
<p>There is a big difference between teaching health and being a healthcare provider.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.rwjf.org/files/publications/books/2000/chapter_01.html[/url]”>http://www.rwjf.org/files/publications/books/2000/chapter_01.html</a>
pregnancy isn’t the only concern of high school students
mental health care may not be sought out of students have to go off site.
My daughter was directly involved in at least two cases in middle school- one where she was concerned about a friend, and one where they were concerned about her- having someone in the school who had medical training was critical to the intervention.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The highest divorce rates, and highest numbers on welfare are in the “red” states as well. So, while there may be a lot of early married in these states, who birth children early, too many of those marriages end in divorce, with young single mothers on the dole.</p>
<p>Thanks, marite. </p>
<p>However, I’m not too sure I trust those numbers either: “The Guttmacher Institute is named after a former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.” (wikipedia).</p>
<p>In fact, I think it’s almost impossible to get numbers that are not agenda-driven.</p>
<p>Anyone who has ever been to <a href=“http://www.teenwire.com%5B/url%5D”>www.teenwire.com</a>, which extolls the joys of “safe” sex for teens, knows PP is not exactly agenda-free.</p>
<p>“We just want to be able to have a little say in areas that touch on traditional morality FOR OUR OWN KIDS.”</p>
<p>This seems quite reasonable to me. Teach your kid that she has to call you after she has taken Plan B, rather than having the state doing it for her.</p>
<p>what is it exactly that some have against Planned Parenthood?
They provide health education and care very inexpensively to a popualtion that otherwise wouldnt receive care.</p>
<p>I was very happy to learn about PP when I was a teen, I looked forward to my appts, because in my life the adults that showed that they cared about me were basically limited to PP.They snuck in advice about taking care of myself, not just regarding birthcontrol- I regard them as very ethical generous souls who serve a gaping need in our society.</p>
<p>marite,</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. There is some very interesting stuff here, but I think I need to look at it for a while to pick up on anything.</p>
<p>Because PP has an extreme abortion on demand for everyone agenda. If they were an environmental group they would be a cross between PETA and ELF.</p>
<p>Massachusetts also has the lowest marriage rate in the nation. It also has the highest age of first-time marriage.</p>
<p>No one, to my knowledge, has parsed that out. The real question, IMO, is, “Are you more likely to stay married in Ma or in Texas, at any given age?” No one has compared teenage Ma divorce rates with teenage divorce rates in other places. Since age is such a huge factor, it’s really tough to make the comparison. </p>
<p>Also, a lot of people move to MA for college and stay there afterwards - I imagine that the population is skewed (in fact, I know it is) towards older, more educated people. Those people have lower divorce rates. </p>
<p>I’m really saying that no one has compared similarly-situated people in different states. That is where the real fun lies.</p>