Abortion stigma reduction at the population level: Development of a mass media intervention phase II
Abortion
Awarded 2018
Interdisciplinary Innovation (Phase 2) Grants
Elizabeth Janiak, ScD
Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts
$75,000

Over the last several decades, public health researchers and practitioners have partnered to improve population health by combating stigma around multiple health issues through mass media interventions. Examples include harm reduction campaigns to combat stigma around substance use disorder, HIV, and mental health service utilization. However, to date, no large- scale domestic mass media campaign has utilized an evidence-based, public health approach to develop, disseminate, and evaluate messaging designed to reduce abortion stigma at the population level. Existing individual-level interventions primarily address the experiences of people who have terminated a pregnancy. However, abortion stigma affects not only people who receive abortion care, but also their partners, families, communities, and health care providers, as well as pregnant people considering, but not ultimately choosing, termination. Because of their potential role in conceiving unintended pregnancies, as well as their frequent role as a social support, abortion stigma may be particularly harmful to romantic partners of people seeking abortion—yet, no existing interventions specifically address their experiences. Moreover, there is a paucity of evidence on which to base development of a media intervention for this population. Our team will fill these gaps in the abortion stigma research and intervention landscape by 1) completing formative research on cisgender male partners’ preferences for a social media-based anti-stigma intervention and 2) creating and testing the acceptability of a social media-based intervention to specifically address abortion stigma among this population.