Modelling youth pregnancy in continental Portugal through geographically weighted regression

Modelling youth pregnancy in continental Portugal through geographically weighted regression

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kt196 torque converter Youth pregnancy, a global public health problem with important social, educational and economic impact, has mostly been studied in the least developed countries.However, this condition also affects the industrialized countries.This article presents a youth pregnancy study at the municipality level in continental Portugal based on geographically weighted regression.

The results indicate that youth pregnancy rates can be explained by several variables: i) proportion (%) of social security beneficiaries; ii) number of households without amenities; iii) the rate of those prematurely leaving school; iv) the unemployment rates of youths and females, ceteris paribus.In addition, it was found that the beneficiaries of social security had a higher impact on youth pregnancy in the southern part of the country, and in the Centre too; that households whole wheat phyllo dough without amenities had a higher impact along the central coast and in the South; that rates of those leaving school prematurely had a higher influence in the North and the Interior than in the rest of the country; and that youth and female unemployment rates were more widespread in the Centre, particularly along the coast.Overall, the model identified a strong association of explanatory variables with youth pregnancy rates in the country as a whole, except in the Porto metropolitan area.

These findings may help health planners to define policies to mitigate this important social problem.