The U.S. has the highest teen pregnancy rate of all industrialized nations. Teens who give birth are less likely to finish high school and attend college than their peers. Many are dependent upon government assistance programs, and their babies are at risk of low birth weight and later educational problems. Accidents include motor vehicle crashes, drowning, suffocation, fires, falls, sports and bicycle injuries, and poisoning. Intentional injuries include violence against oneself and others.
School violence is also of particular concern.
Prevention Efforts that Work Almost 30 years of evidence supports the capability of quality comprehensive health education curricula to improve students health knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Still, while many American children receive health education that is adequate to enhance knowledge, few receive the kind of health education that is effective in changing behavior. Successful curricula acknowledge children s chronological ages and developmental levels. As they mature, children gain different dimensions of understanding of a health topic. For example, a kindergartner can comprehend the spread of germs via dirty hands but is not yet ready to comprehend the spread of HIV through sexual contact.