Teen mothers, unintended pregnancies, and costs across Delaware.

The present study used data from several sources to 1) present information on mothers and births in a single state (Delaware); 2) present cost data to estimate health-related birth real costs; and 3) use the data to estimate the costs and impact on mothers, health care providers, and taxpayers. In addition, this study explicitly examined costs of births through the lens of unplanned/unintended teen and young adult births. Concomitantly, the medical cost of these pregnancies for most of these young mothers who had not wanted to be pregnant at the time, was paid for through the state's Medicaid program. The percentage of Medicaid funded births was much higher for young mothers than for older mothers. Ultimately, it was estimated that young teen (age 17 and under) births cost about $4.0 million each year, older teens (18-20) births $14.0 million, and young adults (21-24) over $26 million. The State funded almost 75 percent of the health care costs of young teen pregnancy prenatal care, deliveries, and newborn care, through Medicaid. And over 75 percent of these Medicaid costs are for births that were unintended at the time. The cost of unintended teen and young adult births funded through Medicaid in Delaware was approximately $25 million annually.

Gender differences in victimization risk: exploring the role of deviant lifestyles.

Although research over the past few decades has illustrated that gender is a significant predictor of victimization, there has been less attention toward explaining these differences. Furthermore, there has been little attention given to how offending and other deviant behaviors contribute to victimization risk for males and females. This is surprising considering that offending, particularly violent behavior, is highly correlated with victimization risk and that males are more likely to offend than females. This study applied cross-sectional and time-ordered models predicting violent victimization and repeat victimization to examine how deviant lifestyles affected victimization risk for males and females. The results suggest that violent behavior increases risk for males and females in the cross-sectional models but not in the time-ordered model. These findings suggest that future research and policies should address longitudinal changes and gender-specific analyses.

Desisting From Prescription Drug Abuse: An Application of Growth Models to Rx Opioid Users.

Modern desistance research has examined many facets of desistance, in terms of theoretical predictors of desistance and recidivism, and in terms of differing types of offending. Though predicting desistance from illegal drug use is among these topics, no research to date has examined the predictors of desisting from prescription opioid abuse. This study uses longitudinal data from 318 prescription opioid users to analyze the effects of various predictors of desistance on declining nonmedical prescription opioid use, with an emphasis on gender differences among participants. Results indicate that theoretical and demographic characteristics correspond with differing rates of decline and further vary by gender.