Annually, more than 20 million adolescent girls aged 15- 19 in developing countries become pregnant, and approximately 12 million give birth. Adolescent pregnancy has become a key public health problem, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa where about 10% of girls become young mothers at age 16, leaving them the highest rates in Africa. The 2018 Nigerian Demographic Health Survey showed adolescent birth rate in 2018 was 106 births per 1,000 women. Kano has an adolescent birth rate of 132, while Lagos is 32. Generally, adolescent births seem higher in the North, specifically in North-Western Zone where the median age of first marriage and first intercourse is approximately 16 years. The USAID/YPE4AH project strategy centers around Youth Hubs, safe spaces for youth to access contraceptives and reproductive health information and referrals. The project adapts and scales up evidence-based activities which combine sports and fun-based activities among adolescent boys and girls (married/unmarried in Kano) aged 15-19. The project uses the Hub-Spokes model and one of the spokes is the Primary Health Care Centers. Contraceptive uptake from March 2022 to August in Lagos and Kano state shows 862 contraceptive uptakes across 2 Youth Hubs and 4,033 uptakes from 9 PHCs in Kano. Average data per hub=431; per PHC=448. In Lagos, contraceptive uptake across 20 PHC= 939; at the 4 hubs= 2,576. Average data per hub=644; per PHC=47. The trends show adolescents in Lagos visit the youth hub more for contraceptive uptake compared to the PHCs while married adolescents in Kano visit both the PHCs and the youth hubs equally to take up contraceptives. One of the reasons the data appear almost the same in the PHC and at the youth hub in Kano is that only married adolescents are expected to take up contraceptives at the youth hub.
