The rate of births to teenage girls in Jackson County is at its lowest point in more than three decades, according to data presented to the Jackson County Board of Health last week.
Only two of the seven board members were present to receive the good news, however. The board lacked a quorum as only members Archie D. Chaney Jr. and Henry Slocum attended.
Northeast Georgia Health District director Dr. Claude Burnett, presented charts dealing with the county’s births to teens rate, and while Georgia continues to lead the nation in births to teens, Burnett’s charts indicated progress in Jackson County.
Among Caucasian teenage girls, the rate was 37 births per 1,000, a number that has declined steadily since 1976 when the rate was 94 per 1,000 girls. During 2009, the latest year for which figures were available, 53 Caucasian females from Jackson County gave birth.
Among black girls, the rate was even lower — 29 births per 1,000 girls. That was down from a high of 135 per 1,000 girls in 1994. During 2009, only four babies were born to black teenage girls from Jackson County.
“The birth count is very accurate,” Burnett said, adding that because population counts are often estimates, the exact birth rates “have to be taken with a grain of salt.
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“There has been a long, steady decline of the white birth rate,” he noted, then added, “both rates are down very substantially. There’s a lot of good news here."
He noted that the total number of births to teenage girls has remained relatively stable over the 33 years represented by the chart, while the population of the county has grown substantially.
