Just a few years back, Fayette County was atop the state when it came to the subject of teen pregnancy rates.
The county now finds itself back in that same position.
The Indiana State Department of Health released its Indiana Natality Report for 2014 in December 2015, with that report showing Fayette County leading the state in the rate of teen pregnancy among both girls ages 15 to 19 and girls ages 18 to 19.
The county's rate of teen pregnancies for girls between the ages of 15 and 19 was 59.3 out of every 1,000 girls in 2014, according to the report, which not only led all 92 Indiana counties but was almost double the state's average of 28 teen pregnancies out of every 1,000 girls.
It also was roughly double the United States teen pregnancy rate for that age group, which was 24.2 out of every 1,000 girls in 2014, according to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy organization.
The only other Indiana county, in fact, to crack a teen pregnancy rate of more than 50 out of every 1,000 for 2014, between the ages of 15 and 19, was Jennings County, which had a rate of 55.2 out of every 1,000 girls.
It also marks a 16.8 percent increase from Fayette County's 2013 teen pregnancy rate of 49.8 out of every 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19.
The main driver behind the county's high rate of teen pregnancies in 2014, between the ages of 15 and 19, could be attributed to its state-leading rate of pregnancies among 18- to 19-year-olds, which came in at 146.2 out of every 1,000 girls.
That rate was almost three times the state's average of 52 out of every 1,000 girls, ages 18 to 19, for 2014, and marks a 22.2 percent increase from Fayette County's 2013 rate of 113.6 out of every 1,000 girls.
Additionally, the only other Indiana counties which had rates of teen pregnancy greater than 100 out of every 1,000 in 2014, among that age group, were Jennings, Ohio and Pulaski counties.
And while Fayette County's teen pregnancy rate for the 15- to 17-year-old age group in 2014 — 19.4 teen pregnancies out of every 1,000 girls — did not lead the state or rise from the county's 2013 rate, it was still among the highest rates in the state, with only Cass, Clark, Green, Jackson, Jennings, Madison, Martin, Newton and White counties having higher rates.
Marla Steele, executive director of the Hope Center in Connersville — which provides pregnancy, parenting and testing services — expressed surprise Wednesday at the figures.
"I am really surprised. I thought we were doing better in the community in the awareness, and I thought here at the Hope Center we were educating our clients, as well," she said. "But, we really don't see the clients until they come in for their pregnancy test."
Steele has seen an increase in the number of teen mothers utilizing services at the center over the past year, she added.
"We've had a steady incline," Steele said. "In 2015, we saw 25 girls come in for a pregnancy test and the test results were — out of that number — 14 of them had a positive pregnancy test."
In 2014, the center had 13 teen mothers test positive for pregnancy, out of 31 teen girls who came into the center for a test, according to Steele.
Part of what she thinks could be the reason for the increase within the county, after a few years of declining teen pregnancy earlier this decade, is the home life of local teen girls.
"I would say that, most of them, it's due to their home life. They're being left alone more often, because parents are working and they're not home as often as they like to be because they have to have a steady income coming in," Steele said. "So the girls are being left alone and going out to try to find that level of love that you would need from a parent, and they're finding it from a boy."
Education, or lack thereof, about the risks associated with teen pregnancy and sexual intercourse is also something Steele feels is a contributing factor to the state-leading teen pregnancy rates.
"From what I've found, they are not being educated," she said. "I feel like the teen population is not being educated to the risk of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections they can get, and just the risks in general."
That view has spurred the Hope Center to work on establishing a program to educate local teens, Steele said, which could also be implemented in local schools. The one hangup currently, though, is what often challenges many non-profits — funding.
"The Hope Center is looking into a program where we can educate more teens in our community about the effects and risks of sexually transmitted infections, and also just respecting yourself and your body," Steele said. "We're looking for funding, because it does take quite a bit of funding to get the program up and running. So we're hoping in 2017, we can implement the program, if we can raise enough money for it."
And while some might question why those teen mothers, ages 18 to 19, are lumped into the teen pregnancy category despite being legal adults, Steele emphasized there is a distinct difference between having a child at 18 and a child at 25 or 26.
"We have had ladies come back and tell us that if they would have known what it would be like (being a teen mother), they would have made a choice to not have sex in the first place," Steele said. "The difference between the ages is that teens, they still have a future ahead of them. They have goals and dreams, and you can still have those goals and dreams, it just might take you down a different path and it might be a little bit harder. You would definitely have to work harder because you'd be juggling a family and school work at the same time.
"With someone in their 20s or 30s having children, they are hopefully established in a career, have a home and even transportation," she continued. "That's something our teens struggle with, is transportation. We work really hard trying to figure out how to get our teens to high school or transportation to get their child to child care."
One thing's for certain, however, Steele commented — the 2014 figures show Fayette County has more work to do on addressing the subject of teen pregnancy.
"After hearing these results and the numbers, that definitely tells me that we need to implement this program and get it into the schools," she concluded. "So that we can educate the students on the risk of teen pregnancy and the sexually transmitted infections."
Fayette County's teen pregnancy rates could also possibly correspond with the county's increasing number of child neglect cases over the past two years, as several research studies conducted lend credence to the hypothesis that children born to teen mothers are more at risk for child neglect and abuse.
Such a suggestion is made in the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2013 Prevention Status Report for the state of Indiana, which tackles teen pregnancy.
In that report, the CDC cites the 2008 study, "Kids Having Kids: Economic Costs and Social Consequences of teen pregnancy," in talking of how child neglect can be associated to teen pregnancy.
"The children of teenaged mothers are more likely to achieve less in school, experience abuse or neglect, have more health problems, be incarcerated at some time during adolescence, and give birth as a teenager," the report stated.
Fayette County has seen its number of substantiated child neglect cases almost quadruple since 2012, when it had 40 such cases, to 151 in 2015, corresponding with the increase in teen pregnancy and drug abuse during that same time frame.
Other statistics of note regarding Fayette County in the ISDH's Natality Report for 2014 also include the percentage of local mothers having children who either smoked, were unmarried or on Medicaid at the time of their child's birth.
Approximately 25 percent of the mothers who had children in Fayette County in 2014 smoked, according to the report, which was 10 percent higher than the state's average of 15.1 percent.
Meanwhile, 58.2 percent of mothers having children in Fayette County in 2014 were unmarried, a mark which led the entire state and was roughly 15 higher than the state's average of 43.3 percent.
Finally, the county was also above the state average in the percentage of mothers who were on Medicaid when having their child in 2014. About 56.6 percent of mothers having children in 2014 were on Medicaid, compared to the state's average of 43.7 percent.