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To explore weapon carrying among young, inner-city adolescents, a survey was administered in fall 1993 to 2005 predominately Hispanic students (mean age = 12.8 years) in three New York City junior high schools. The survey revealed that 21% of students reported personally carrying a weapon; guns and knives were the weapons most commonly carried. Most of those who carried guns reported that they bought them. Forty-two percent indicated that they had a family member or close friend who had been shot. Boys and older students were more likely to report carrying weapons. Preventive efforts may need to begin before or on entry into junior high school rather than high school.

Data from a pregnancy prevention program operating through school-based clinics in four New York City junior high schools suggest that an intensive risk-identification and case-management approach may be effective among very young adolescents. Among students given a referral to a family planning clinic for contraception, the proportion who visited the clinic and obtained a method rose from 11% in the year before the program began to 76% in the program's third year. Pregnancy rates among teenagers younger than 15 decreased by 34% over four years in the program schools. In the fourth year of the program, the pregnancy rate in one school that was unable to continue the program was almost three times the average rate for the other three schools (16.5 pregnancies per 1,000 female students vs. 5.8 per 1,000).

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