Books before babies: Mississippi and Arkansas are leading the country in a new effort to prevent unplanned pregnancies among young adults.

• Author: Blackman, Kate
• Position: TEEN PREGNANCY

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Mississippi Senator Sally Doty (R) was surprised to learn that the majority of teen pregnancies occur in 18- and 19-year-olds. "That is just not what you think when you hear 'teen pregnancy,'" she says. "The myth out there is that it's all these young girls, but it's not. It's our older teens."

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She learned about the extent of the problem and some promising efforts by community colleges to tackle the issue while serving on the governor's task force on teen pregnancy prevention. Higher education seemed the ideal place to focus efforts "so we could have the most effect."

Doty drafted pioneering legislation that requires community colleges and universities to develop a plan to address unplanned pregnancy. Many states have educational programs aimed at adolescents in middle or high school, but post-secondary efforts have been limited to individual colleges. No state had ever tried a similar statewide approach to address the high rate of pregnancy among this age group.

The act delineated eight different areas the plan should address--such as incorporating information on preventing an unplanned pregnancy into orientation and "student success courses," raising awareness through academic classes, collaborating with health care centers and identifying ways to support student parents--but it was not prescriptive in the details, leaving most decisions up to the colleges.

"We have a great system of community colleges in Mississippi ... and they are the experts in the field of reaching 18- and 19-year-olds," Doty says. "We didn't want to tell them what would be best for their schools. We wanted them to come up with their own individualized plans."

The bill passed in 2014. Doty says many of her legislative colleagues also were surprised by the statistics and in favor of taking a different approach. Doty also credits the bill's passage to the governor's support. "You don't see too many Republican governors, or any governors at all, saying they want to address teen pregnancy," she says.

Arkansas Joins In

The Arkansas General Assembly followed Mississippi's lead by passing a nearly identical bill in 2015. Representative Deborah Ferguson (D), one of the bill's sponsors, was surprised, like Doty, that three-fourths of the teen pregnancies in her state involved 18- and 19-year-olds. "I probably watch too much reality TV--but I thought it was '16 and Pregnant,'" she says, referring to the MTV series. "That was a...