However, these percentages vary considerably by race and ethnicity. In one decade, the proportion of pregnant girls under age 15 who gave birth increased by about nine percentage points, and the proportion who had abortions dropped by a similar amount. Both white and black women s death rates from heart disease have dropped significantly since 1970, while their death rates from cancer have increased somewhat. Black and white women s lung cancer death rates, which are very similar, increased fivefold between 1960 and 1990.
Smoking is considerably less common in nearly every age group of adult women than it used to be.
Only among women over 65 is smoking more common than it was among their counterparts a generation ago. The incidence of AIDS among black and Hispanic women and teenage girls is far out of proportion to their presence in the population as a whole. WREI prepares a new edition of its book, The American Woman , every other year.