NCHS Dataline

The National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) is now in continuous operation. Previously conducted in cycles by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, the survey will now be able to monitor on a continuous basis changes in family planning, sexual activity, contraceptive use, family dissolution and other topics related to reproductive health and family formation. From the latest cycle (2002), which was expanded to include men, the NSFG releases the first report with data on men's attitudes and practices. The final 2004 birth data have been released and presentations at the 2006 Data Users Conference are now available online.

FAMILY GROWTH SURVEY PROVIDES NEW FINDINGS ON MEN; SURVEY TO BE CONTINUOUS

For cycle 6 of the National Survey of Family Growth, men were added to the sample. The result is the first comprehensive report on fertility, contraception, and fatherhood indicators among men 15–44 years of age in the United States. The 2002 NSFG is the latest survey of this type, and—for the first time—this large-scale, nationwide survey includes men. Whenever appropriate, the findings for men and women are contrasted. Men's and women's reproductive experiences vary significantly, and often sharply, by characteristics such as education, income, and Hispanic origin and race. Among the key findings:

• Teen fathers. Among non-Hispanic black fathers, 25% fathered their first child before they were 20 years old; 19% of Hispanic fathers also became fathers as teenagers, and 11% of non-Hispanic white men became fathers while they were teens.

• Nonmarital childbearing. About one-half of the men without a high school education have fathered a child outside of marriage compared with about 6% among college graduates.

• Child support. About three-quarters of the 28 million men who have children (younger than age 19) live with those children. Among fathers who live apart from their children, 85% of fathers with higher incomes contributed to their children's support on a regular basis, compared with 64% of fathers with income below the poverty level.

• Marriage and divorce. A third of men marry by age 25; almost two-thirds marry by age 30. Among women, one-half are married by the time they are 25 and three-quarters by age 30. Overall, men marry later in life than women. The average woman marries a man two years older than she. One-half of the men who married as teenagers were divorced or separated within 10 years, compared with 17% of men who married at 26 years of age or older.

• Sexual activity. Men who did not live with both parents at age 14 were more likely to have had sexual intercourse during the teenage years (19 or younger) compared with those who lived with both parents at age 14.

“Fertility, Contraception and Fatherhood: Data on Men and Women from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth,”¹ is available on the CDC website at www.cdc.gov/nchs.

2004 FINAL BIRTH DATA

The teen birth rate continued to decline in 2004 to a record low. The rate has dropped by one-third for teens 15–19 years of age since its recent peak in 1991, but the drop from 2003 to 2004 is the smallest since the downward trend began. The rate for the youngest teenagers, 10–14 years of age, actually rose slightly in 2004. Since 1991, the decline in the birth rate for black teenagers has kept a faster pace than that for other racial/ethnic groups. Birth rates for unmarried teenagers continued to decline but rose for unmarried women at older ages.

For the second consecutive year, all measures of childbearing by unmarried women rose sharply. The birth rate rose 3% to 46.1 per 1,000 unmarried women aged 15–44 years in 2004, essentially matching the previous high point recorded in 1994. The rate was fairly stable from 1995 to 2002. The number of births to unmarried women climbed 4% to 1,470,189, the highest number ever recorded in the more than six decades for which comparable national statistics are available. The proportion of all births to unmarried women increased to 35.8% in 2004. Birth rates for unmarried teenagers continued to fall, though more modestly than in previous years, whereas rates for unmarried women aged 20 years and older continued to increase. Unmarried teenagers accounted for only 24% of all nonmarital births in 2004, whereas unmarried women in their twenties accounted for 59%.

Overall, the number of births rose very slightly, the crude birth rate was down, and the general fertility rate increased modestly. In 2004, 4,112,052 births were registered in the United States—22,102 more than in 2003. Births increased for Hispanic women, were essentially unchanged for non-Hispanic black women, and declined for non-Hispanic white women. The crude birth rate for the U.S. in 2004 declined slightly from 2003, to 14.0 live births per 1,000 total population. However, the general fertility rate in 2004 increased slightly from the 2003 rate, to 66.3 live births per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years. These findings appear in a web-only summary report, “Final Births for 2004,”² which will be followed by a more detailed report that includes health characteristics and state as well as national data.

DATA USERS CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AVAILABLE ON-LINE

NCHS held its latest biennial Data Users Conference July 10–12, 2006. The conference is designed to assist data users in understanding and using NCHS public-use data files. The program consists of workshops on specific data files and hands-on sessions for more in-depth training. There are opportunities to share information about the methodology of the data collection systems, the analytical aspects, and technical issues that can enhance data use and value to the over 1,000 analysts, researchers, and program directors who attended. The informative presentations ranged from overviews of NCHS and its various data systems to tools to use for data analysis and advanced sessions on specific topics such as nutrition, environmental health, international health, race and ethnicity, and sessions that examine topics across data systems. Selected presentations are available on the NCHS website (www.cdc.gov/nchs); more will be posted when available.

NCHS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR COMMUNICATION SCIENCE RETIRES

Sandra Smith, who directed communications activities at the National Center for Health, retired from NCHS in June 2006. She had worked at NCHS for more than 40 years and for almost two decades wrote the NCHS Dataline column that appears in each issue of Public Health Reports. She will continue to write this column as a contractor.