Impact Factor (2025): 6.9
DOI Prefix: 10.47001/IRJIET
Adolescent pregnancy is a worldwide public health problem
that requires urgent attention. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest burden of
teenage pregnancies in the world followed by South Central Asia then lastly
Latin America and the Caribbean. Child marriages, poverty, peer influence,
lower educational level, alcohol and substance abuse, parental absence and lack
of proper guidance and single parent households have been identified as major
drivers of adolescent pregnancy. This study uses annual time series data of
adolescent fertility rate for Sub-Saharan Africa from 1960 to 2020 to predict
future trends of adolescent fertility rate over the period 2021 to 2030. The study
utilizes Holt’s linear exponential smoothing model. The optimal values of
smoothing constants α and β are 0.9 and 0.1 respectively based on minimum MSE.
The results of the study indicate that annual adolescent fertility will
continue to drop but remain high throughout the out of sample period. In order
to effectively reduce high adolescent fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa,
authorities must continuously enforce laws that protect sexual and reproductive
rights of women and girls, support girl child education, fund empowerment
projects for youths and increase awareness campaigns among communities.
Country : Zimbabwe
IRJIET, Volume 7, Issue 2, February 2023 pp. 395-400