by Michael Karpman

Hundreds of thousands of teens nationwide are expected to participate in the fifth annual National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy taking place on May 3.

The National Day is organized to reach teens directly through an innovative, online quiz.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy offers municipal leaders a range of suggested steps they can take to help promote the National Day and encourage teens in their community to participate through the quiz.

Taking the Quiz
On May 3 (and for a few weeks thereafter), teens will be encouraged to go online to the campaign?s website ? www.teenpregnancy.org ? to take a short, engaging and informative quiz. The quiz asks teens to reflect on the best course of action in a number of tough and realistic situations.

Over 630,000 people participated in the 2005 National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, up from 72,000 people in 2002.

A survey of some of those who participated in 2005 indicates the quiz is a success:

? 84 percent said the quiz made them think about what they might do in such situations;

? 66 percent said the quiz made the risks of teen pregnancy seem more real to them; and

? 63 percent said they would encourage others to take the quiz.

The Importance of Prevention
Despite recent declines, about 34 percent of girls in the United States get pregnant at least once by age 20, giving the United States the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world. Every year, 820,000 teenage girls become pregnant. The online quiz is designed to help teens come up with their own plans for avoiding pregnancy.

Studies show that teen pregnancy can have serious consequences for the teen mother, the child and the overall community. Teen mothers are less likely to complete school, more likely to be single parents and less likely to earn a high school diploma or college degree.

Teen pregnancy is also closely linked to poverty. According to the 1998 Economic Report of the President, the growth in single-parent families was the most important reason for increased poverty among children over the last 20 years, with out-of-wedlock births (half of which were to teens) as the driving force behind the growth in the number of single parents.

Children born to teen mothers suffer from higher rates of low birth weight and related health problems, insufficient health care, poorer school performance and higher rates of abuse and neglect.

Federal, state and local governments spend billions of dollars per year to help families that began with a teenage birth.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, organized in 1996, is based on the concept that reducing the nation?s rate of teen pregnancy is one of the most strategic and direct means available to improve overall child well-being and to reduce persistent child poverty.

NLC, through its Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Institute), is one of over 150 national organizations helping to make sure the 2006 National Day is a success.

What Local Officials Can Do
The campaign has identified several steps that local officials can take to participate in the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, such as:

? Issuing a proclamation or resolution in support of the National Day;

? Using the National Day to introduce a new initiative or highlight a current program;

? Sponsoring a teen pregnancy prevention event;

? Creating a public service announcement or issuing a press release on the National Day;

? Ordering National Day postcards and sending them out to teens in your community;

? Creating and putting up posters using the National Day ad template; or

? Making computers accessible on May 3 and encouraging teens to take the quiz.

Details: For more ideas on how to promote the National Day, please visit the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy website at http://www.teenpregnancy.org/national.

To learn about the YEF Institute?s efforts to help municipal officials support at-risk youth, visit www.nlc.org/iyef or contact Jessica Sandoval at (202) 626-3035 or sandoval@nlc.org.