Sexual experience, contraceptive usage, and source of contraception among never-married women: Albany (NY) Health Region.

INTRODUCTION Twenty -three percent of never married women aged 15 -19 and 71% aged 20 -44 in the Albany New York Health Region (AHR) were estimated, as of 1974, to have had some coital experience. This estimate is based on data obtained through interviews of an area -probability sample of the 15to44year -old female population living in the 18county AHR. The survey area was divided into 2 segments --the AlbanySchenectady -Troy Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA)which includes 4 counties and slightly over 50% of the population in the AHR; the remaining 14 counties of the health region were classified as non -SMSA. This division is essentially an urban rural split of the health region. The survey included 2,291 respondents, of which interviews were completed for 2,059 (90 %), both married and unmarried. In the SMSA, 87.4% of women eligible for interview were interviewed, and in the non SMSA 94.0 %. Refusals accounted for only 4.3% of the incomplete interviews in the SMSA and 2.8% of the incomplete interviews in the non -SMSA. The survey was conducted by the Bureau of Family Planning of the New York State Health Department with consultation from the Family Planning Evaluation Division of the Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia, in response tc a need for information on correlates of planned and unplanned fertility, family planning practices, and the sexual experience and contraceptive practice of unmarried women, an important program target group. This paper deals with the 497 never -married women included in the survey. The interest in data for never married women, especially teenagers, is due to the increasing rate of out -ofwedlock births in recent years and a concurrent decline in marital fertility (1). In 1974, 13% of all births in the United States were out of wedlock; 36% of births to women aged 19 or younger were out of wedlock (2). In the mid1960s, for women 15 -19 years of age, 42% of legitimate births were estimated to be premaritally conceived (3). A study done in Massachusetts in the late 1960s shows this figure to be as high as 60% for that state (4). In 1973, 68% of all legal abortions were performed on unmarried women (5). Since 1972, with the total fertility rate below replacement reproduction, it has become apparent that an increasing proportion of unplanned fertility in the United States may be attributable to out -ofwedlock births (6). The National Fertility Studies, which were conducted in 1955, 1960, 1965, and 1970, only surveyed women who had been or were then married (evermarried). The only comparable data for never married women were obtained in 1971 through a national probability sample of the 15 -to -19 year -old female population in the United States 8). For never married women over 19, no survey data are available on sexual experience and contraceptive practice with the exception of studies involving special groups, such as college women.