Untangling the health disparities of teen pregnancy

The purpose of this secondary analysis is to determine whether a developmental maturity model differentially predicts pregnancy for African American, Puerto Rican, and Mexican inner-city teens. This is a secondary analysis of data from a case control study that tested a model of developmental maturity and teen pregnancy with 183 pregnant and never-pregnant pairs of inner-city teens matched on age, ethnicity, and freshman cohort. The models differentially predict pregnancy for the separate ethnic groups, with sexual behaviors being the most important factors regardless of ethnicity. The health disparities of teen pregnancies may not decrease unless patterns of dating/sexual behaviors are reversed.