Exploring demographic trends and racialized barriers to abortion care access in Minnesota
Abortion
Awarded 2022
Inequities in abortion access
Asha Hassan, MPH
Planned Parenthood North Central States
$49,356

With impending SCOTUS decisions that may further limit access, it is crucial to understand how people most vulnerable to a changing legal abortion landscape are impacted. Despite the fragile legislative and judicial future for abortion in the US, the deregulation of medication abortion by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and tele-abortion access has great potential. However, little is known about which populations are utilizing expanded access to medication abortion OR how other structural determinants may continue to hinder access to care as abortion access type shifts. Utilizing electronic health record data of all three clinic-based abortion facilities in Minnesota, we will ascertain who is accessing tele-abortion and who is not. How are they different from surgical abortion patients and in-clinic medication abortion patients? And what role does structural racism play in abortion in-access? Our research team will explore demographic trends of medication abortion patients in MN and utilize a novel to multidimensional measure of structural racism to assess its effects on measure the effects of structural racism on abortion access.