Accessibility and availability of the O-Pill: A nationwide secret shopper study
Contraception
Awarded 2024
Complex Family Planning Fellowship Research
Mikaela Koch, BA
University of California, Los Angeles
$6,014

Mikaela (Mika) Koch graduated with Honors from Stanford University with a major in Human Biology, concentration in Global Women’s Health and Minor in Human Rights. She subsequently spent several years working for an international nonprofit providing high fidelity obstetric and neonatal emergency simulation and team training in limited resource settings before starting medical school at the David Geffen School of Medicine where she is currently in her third year. At UCLA she has co-founded the UCLA Abortion Doula project, co-coordinated Medical Students for Choice and has been the lead on a vast array of research projects including a global contraceptive mapping project for the International Federation of OBGYN, a postpartum contraception needs assessment, an analysis of the impact of an abortion doula program on medical students and patients and studies assessing the impact of the Dobbs decision on medical students and residents’ career decision making. This project aims to be one of the first national studies mapping the accessibility and availability of the O-pill. Utilizing secret shopper methodology successfully implemented for emergency contraception, a representative sample of pharmacies across the United States will be contacted and the availability, cost, and accuracy of pharmacist counseling will be mapped by population density and level of abortion restriction. Given the O-pill hopes to decentralize contraceptive access, this study will aim to assess its true accessibility and identify any barriers to consumers.