Of course, when less developed (less-Western?) nations are included in the reckoning, the U.S. and U.K. come out looking clean-cut and freshly washed. The highest rates are found in Latin America and Africa, some of these countries reaching levels two, three and four times that of the U.S.

The conclusion must be that cold statistics say very little about how to address this issue. In fact, zooming in for a closer look at some of the real-life stories that make up these statistics may be the only way to gain real insight into changing them.

In the December 1964 issue of The American Statistician, Yale professor Colin White introduced a remark made by the prominent British statistician Major Greenwood: "The rich drama of birth, life and death becomes, in the hands of the statistical sociologist, a report on ‘marriages, babies dead, broken lives, men gone mad, labor and crime, all treated in bulk, with the tears wiped off.’"

Especially insofar as teen pregnancy statistics are concerned, it is difficult to disagree with that sentiment.

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