SOCIAL INEQUALITIES IN THE BRAZILIAN SCENARIO AND ITS INFLUENCE FOR TEENAGE PREGNANCY: A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE

Abstract

Adolescence is a period that encompasses the age range from 10 to 19 years, when there is the transition from childhood to adulthood. It is marked by too many changes, many of them still in the process of maturation. Thus, social vulnerabilities are potential  aggravating factors for the persistence of situations such as early pregnancy. Thus, the present  study is an integrative literature review and aims to analyze the influence of social inequality  on teenage pregnancy and its impacts on the biopsychosocial dimensions of the individual.  Thus, articles written in Portuguese, English and Spanish languages, with publication in the years 2018 to 2022 and that were related to the theme were selected. Moreover, to search the databases, the Boolean operators "AND" were associated with the Descriptors in Health Science - DeCs, by the sentence: "Adolescent AND Pregnancy AND Brazil". The Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature (LILACS) and the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) were used to generate an initial sample of 286 articles. Therefore, the studies showed that teenage pregnancy is common in the Brazilian scenario and is related to low education, race, income, early sexual initiation and living in violent environments.  Furthermore, health professionals are propagators of change, through health education, and are able to intervene on such a problem.