12 The correlation between teenage pregnancy and deprivation was quantified in the Conceptions-Deprivation alsoyshowedolkithathich also showed that under-18 conception rates in England were highly correlated with the percentage of children living in poverty.
In England, the north-east had the highest under-18 conception rate, at 30.6 per 1,000 girls aged 15-17.
Office for National Statistics figures released in February showed that the UK under-18 conception rate remains the lowest since 1969, at 27.9 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 17.
Wellings says the statistics, which also show that under-18s conception rates dropped by 3.2% and abortion rates have increased by 7.5%, show that England is "bucking the trend" for rising teenage pregnancy rates in other European countries.
A relatively under-explored conception of forgiveness, endorsed by some Buddhists, that insists that forgiveness be understood as "merely letting go of anger" (Boleyn-Fitzgerald, 2002) eschews altogether the notion that forgiveness must be about the principled overcoming of anger occasioned by culpable wrongs, and warrants closer scrutiny.
A midcourse review in 2005 showed that while overall the under-18 conception rate had declined by 11%, there was wide variation in results across other areas.
This prompted an in-depth review: 3 local government areas where under-18 conception rates declined since 1998 were compared with 3 areas with similar demographics but where conception rates were static or increasing.
The research also found that the decline in under-18 conceptions was greater in those areas allocated specific resources by the strategy.
Commissioned by the Department of Health, the research analysed data from 148 local authorities in England and compared the rates of under-18 conceptions, abortions and birth rates in the four years before (1994-1998) afterfter (1999-2003) the strategy was launched.
31 The Public Health Outcomes Framework states that reducing under-18 conceptions has important benefits for short-term and long-term health outcomes.
