ATLANTA (Cox News Service) -- The percentage of teenagers getting pregnant has declined across the nation.

In a report released Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that births to girls 15 to 19 years old dropped nationwide by 5 percent last year and 26 percent since 1991.

In Georgia, the rate of teen births fell 16 percent from 1991 to 2000, at a time when the national decline was 22 percent, according to a CDC report published last week. State analyses lag a year behind national numbers.

"This is an important milestone in our fight against teen pregnancy," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

"When it comes to teen sex, pregnancy and birth, 1991-2001 is now firmly on record as the decade of substantial progress," said Sarah Brown, director of the nonprofit National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "It is clear that more teens are . . . refraining from sex and that those who are sexually active are using contraception more carefully."

The declining trend is particularly positive for Georgia, which in the early 1990s had the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the United States.

Things have improved so much that Atlanta is about to be awarded an A+ in a national report card of American cities by the nonprofit Population Connection. The report, to be released Tuesday, measures cities' improvements in rates of teen pregnancy, infant mortality and low-birthweight babies.

The national trends revealed Thursday cross ages and races.

In the last 10 years, the CDC found, births dropped 35 percent among 15-to-17-year-olds and 20 percent among 18- and 19-year-olds. Even in the youngest category - 10-to-14-year-olds - there was a slight drop, from 0.9 to 0.8 births per 1,000.

Over the same decade, births declined 37 percent among African-American teenagers, 30 percent among non-Hispanic white teens and 13 percent among Hispanic teens.

In 2001, there were 362,953 births to 15-to-19-year-olds, a rate of 45.9 births per 1,000. That was a record low, and the 10th straight year the rate had decreased.

"While we've made excellent progress, much work remains," said Dr. David Fleming, acting director of the CDC. "Last year almost a half-million teens gave birth, and one of every four black and Hispanic mothers did not receive timely prenatal care."

In a separate report released Thursday, the CDC said abortions among women 15 to 44 years old dropped by 2 percent from 1997 to 1998, the most recent year for which numbers are available.

In 1997, all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and New York City reported statistics; in 1998, Alaska, California, New Hampshire and Oklahoma did not file reports.

The rate of abortions in Georgia was 18 per 1,000 women, according to the report published Thursday, a decline from the 1990 rate of 24 per 1,000 women.

There were 884,273 abortions in 1998, compared with 900,171 in the same areas in 1997, the agency said. More than half the abortions were performed in the first eight weeks of pregnancy, and 88 percent in the first trimester.

Women getting abortions were most likely to be white, unmarried and younger than 25 years old.

Despite the positive trends, the news is not all good, experts cautioned. The United States still ranks far below the rest of the industrialized world in its ability to prevent teen pregnancy and birth.

"The country must redouble its efforts to make sure the next decade is one of continued progress," said Isabel Sawhill, president of the national teen-pregnancy campaign.

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.