New Mexico has one of the highest teen pregnancy in the nation, and now that the Trump Administration has slashed funding for teen pregnancy prevention projects, researchers here say it鈥檚 like the rug has been pulled out from under them.
The University of New Mexico is one of over 80 institutions across the country that saw their federal grants for teen pregnancy prevention cut short this week.
UNM researcher says doctors often wing it when talking to teens about risky sexual behavior. Her $5 million, 5-year was geared towards finding the most effective way for doctors to talk to Latino, Native American and low income teens in order to prevent teen pregnancies. Halting the research three years in, she says, before they鈥檝e collected all their data or analyzed it for answers, offers no scientific or statistical benefit.
鈥淚 mean it鈥檚 just shockingly wasteful to invest this much money in building and starting a huge clinical trial and then stopping it,鈥� Hettema explained.
Hettema says their project was the first to take a comprehensive approach by incorporating counseling techniques and allowing teens to talk openly about their sexual behavior.
