SIR – The report of a marginal reduction in teenage pregnancies in Bradford may indeed be welcome, but my ‘inner statistician’ began to wonder whether there is much to celebrate.
The quoted local rate of 45.5 per 1,000 girls aged between 15 and 17 already compares badly with the national average of 40.
However, what is missing is a factor to recognise a distinct local population culture which, if incorporated, produces a very serious conclusion for our area.
For example, around 20 per cent of the target group in Bradford are girls of Asian origin and, acknowledging the strength of family structures and culture within their community, it would be surprising if the rate of early teenage pregnancies was as high as five per 1,000, never mind 45.
So, if we extract those from the sample, we would find that the overall rate of teenage pregnancy among the rest of the group was actually around 63 per 1,000.
From that simple analysis we may conclude that there is a dramatically-heightened problem among Bradford’s non-Asian teenagers, at a level which is almost 60 per cent higher than the national average.
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