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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Reduce the proportion of pregnancies conceived within 18 months of a previous birth — FP‑02 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About the National Data  |  Methodology  |  History

About the National Data

Data

Data Source:  National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), CDC/NCHS

Baseline: 33.8 percent of pregnancies were conceived within 18 months of a previous birth, as reported in 2015-17

Target: 26.9 percent

Numerator
Number of women aged 15 to 44 years whose most recent pregnancy (in the last 5 years) was conceived within 18 months of a previous live birth.
Denominator
Number of women aged 15 to 44 with at least 2 pregnancies.
Target-setting method
Minimal statistical significance
Target-setting method details
Minimal statistical significance, assuming the same standard error for the target as for the baseline.
Target-setting method justification
Trend data were not available for this objective. The standard error was used to calculate a target based on minimal statistical significance, assuming the same standard error for the target as for the baseline. This method was used because it was a statistically significant improvement from the baseline.

Methodology

Questions used to obtain the national baseline data

(For additional information, please visit the data source page linked above.)
Numerator:
[If a current pregnancy:]
How many weeks or months pregnant are you now?
[If a completed pregnancy:]
How many months or weeks had you been pregnant when (the baby was born / that pregnancy ended)

Pregnancy conception date for the most recent pregnancy is defined by DATECON, a recode constructed from DATEND and PRGLNGTH for completed pregnancies and date of interview and PRGLNGTH for current pregnancies.

Numerator and Denominator:

Total number of pregnancies [PREGNUM recode based on the question below]

(Including this pregnancy,) how many times have you been pregnant in your life?

Century Month for Pregnancy End Date (including live birth) [DATEND recode based on the question below]

In what month and year (did this pregnancy end / was this baby born)?

For each pregnancy, a recode OUTCOME is defined to indicate pregnancy outcome as shown below:

  1. Live birth
  2. Induced Abortion
  3. Still birth
  4. Miscarriage
  5. Ectopic pregnancy
  6. Current pregnancy

Methodology notes

A female is considered to have had a pregnancy within 18 months of a previous birth if she had at least 2 pregnancies and the 2nd most previous pregnancy ended in a live birth. The most recent pregnancy can be a current pregnancy. The interval between the most recent pregnancy and previous live birth is derived from the delivery date of the live birth and the date of conception for the most recent pregnancy's conception in the last 5 years.

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Retained, which includes core objectives that are continuing from Healthy People 2020 with no change in measurement.