International Journal of Women's Health (Jan 2017)
Lower education among low-income Brazilian adolescent females is associated with planned pregnancies
Abstract
Alexandre Faisal-Cury,1 Karen M Tabb,2 Guilherme Niciunovas,3 Carrie Cunningham,4 Paulo R Menezes,1 Hsiang Huang4,5 1Department of Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; 2School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA; 3School of Medicine, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; 4Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, USA; 5Department of Psychiatry, Laboratory of Psychopathology and Psychiatric Therapeutics (LIM-23), Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil Abstract: Adolescent pregnancy has social, economic, and educational consequences and is also linked to adverse perinatal outcomes. However, studies show a positive relationship between pregnancy and increased social status among low-income adolescents. This study aims to assess the association between planned pregnancy and years of schooling among low-income Brazilian adolescents. This is a secondary analysis of a cohort study conducted from May 2005 to March 2007 in public primary care clinics in São Paulo, Brazil. Participants (n=168) completed a detailed structured questionnaire. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between years of schooling and planned pregnancy. After adjusting for the covariates income, wealth score, crowding, age, marital status, and race, planned pregnancy was independently associated with lower years of education (odds ratio: 1.82; 95% confidence interval: 1.02–3.23). Although this finding may be related to these adolescents having less access to information and health services, another possible explanation is that they have a greater desire to have children during adolescence. Keywords: adolescent pregnancy, planned pregnancy, Brazil, low-income population, women
