In Uganda, as in many other countries around the world, social stigma plays a critical role in the social, medical, and legal marginalization of abortion care. Stigma may ultimately determine whether a woman seeks a safe versus unsafe abortion or pursues life-saving medical care when suffering postabortion complications. Effective stigma reduction interventions need to be ...Read more >

Objective: To determine if a combined oral contraceptive (COC) initiated shortly after ulipristal acetate (UPA) administration interferes with its mechanism of action. Study design: Healthy, reproductive-age women of normal BMI with proven ovulation (serum progesterone >=3ng/mL) were enrolled for 3 cycles (Cycle 1, UPA only; Cycle 2 washout; Cycle 3 UPA plus COC). During Cycles ...Read more >

Objectives: To investigate if women desire contraception counseling when seeking first trimester abortion services. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study by distributing self-administered anonymous surveys to women seeking first trimester medical or surgical abortion at three clinics in Sacramento, Chicago and Cleveland. Surveys were completed after registration and before in-office counseling. We asked whether women ...Read more >

This project examined social stigma in shaping Ghanaian adolescent sexual and reproductive health experiences and specifically as a barrier to modern contraception use. The project applied a mixed-methods (qualitative and quantitative) approach across two research study phases carried out in Kumasi and Accra, Ghana. The first study phase consisted of qualitative work to provide a ...Read more >

Objectives: The research extended an ongoing prospective cohort study of 400 women in Texas to assess the risk of an unintended pregnancy during the two years following childbirth, and how that risk varies according to both the type of contraception being used and whether a woman’s method is the method that she would like to ...Read more >

Effective contraceptive counseling is essential to providing women with high quality contraception that they can use correctly and consistently and thereby avoid unintended pregnancies, but what makes counseling effective is a growing area of research. One aspect of counseling that has received little attention is incorporation of social network influence into the discussion. With a ...Read more >

Objectives: One of the few successful treatments for obesity is bariatric surgery. About half of bariatric surgery patients are women of reproductive age. Gastric bypass, a common bariatric surgical procedure, is associated with malabsorption of nutrients and medications. Since OC are still the most popular method of reversible contraception, and are often used by obese ...Read more >

In Haiti, 33% of women who desire to space or prevent pregnancy are not yet using modern contraceptive methods. This gap between those who desire to plan their pregnancies and those using contraceptives is the highest in the western hemisphere. Unmet need for contraception results in unintended pregnancies that can have dangerous outcomes for mothers ...Read more >

This project will use community-based participatory research (CBPR) to engage community-based abortion providers who provide abortions outside of the formal healthcare system as equal research partners in exploring outcomes and best practices related to their provision of out-of-clinic abortion care. Our aims include: 1) Investigate and engage in participatory action related to the following aspects ...Read more >

Does access to high quality family planning positively affect the life course of women and their families? We plan to address this question – one which is crucial to policy arguments worldwide, but which has rarely been studied with adequate data on the life course outcomes of the women family planning programs are intended to ...Read more >