1 From the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Bridgeport Hospital, Bridgeport, and Department of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut
Understanding the demographics of teenage pregnancy and teenage drug abuse is far easier than thinking of solutions to either. Nevertheless, solutionsat least partial solutionsdo exist. Several successful programs and their essential components are discussed. Prevention of early teenage drug and sexual experimentation intersect in several key areas: the family, the media, the role of the physician, the appropriateness of prevention, and the need to understand what is normal adolescent behavior. Only when these dual problems are thoroughly understood and their etiologies in adult society are acknowledged will attempts at "solutions" be successful.