Despite recent improvements the US still has the highest rate of teen pregnancy among high-income countries. Teen pregnancy and childbirth cause significant immediate and long-term socioeconomic burden and health disparities for teen parents and their children. In 2010, teen pregnancy and childbirth cost the United States $9.4 billion taxpayer dollars. Long acting reversible contraceptives, including ...Read more >

This is a prospective cohort study comparing the change in mean hair cortisol concentration of women at baseline and 6 months after initiating levonorgestrel and copper intrauterine devices.

Background: Contraceptive counseling at the time of abortion is a typical practice for many abortion providers due to the perception that women are highly motivated to use contraception at this time. When asked, nearly 2/3 of women do not want to discuss birth control at the time of abortion. In addition, some women perceive pressure ...Read more >

Mixed methods study exploring patient preferences for contraceptive education methods, designing a contraceptive education tool, and trialing that tool compared to CHOICE model counseling.

Background: In an effort to change community-level abortion stigma (public attitudes) about abortion, many reproductive health organizations promote campaigns that encourage people who have had abortions to tell their stories through video or in writing. However, we lack empirical data on whether abortion storytelling reduces community-level abortion stigma. Objective: To assess the impact of viewing ...Read more >

Background: Substance use disorder is a diagnosis that encompasses a constellation of behaviors surrounding the use of an addictive substance that may result in severe physical, social, or psychological impairment. Substance use disorder is common in the United States; over 40% of those affected are women. Upon entering recovery for substance use disorder, women may ...Read more >

Background:  Most unintended pregnancies occur in women who are not using regular contraception. Despite improvement in access to contraception, the percentage of sexually active women who are not using contraception has remained unchanged over the past ten years. One of the most common reasons cited for non-use is irregular intercourse. There is a significant interest ...Read more >

The objective of this study was to examine the rate of ovulatory disruption when intramuscular depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) is administered across graded stages of dominant follicle development. DMPA was administered to healthy, ovulatory women, ages 18-33 years, upon reaching one of three randomly, pre-assigned dominant follicle sizes: 12-14mm, 15-17mm, and ≥18mm. Dominant follicles were ...Read more >

The etonogestrel (ENG) implant is the most effective contraceptive method available. However, its use is complicated in high-HIV prevalence settings because data show reduced implant efficacy during efavirenz-based (EFZ) ART therapy. New, more effective strategies for concomitant ART/implant use need to be identified. Dolutegravir-based (DTG) ART, first-line ART in many resource-rich countries, is now being ...Read more >

Patients living in rural communities face access issues to sub-specialty care and abortion is no exception. Telemedicine has become an innovative strategy to address such access disparities and we aimed to develop a preoperative telemedicine program for our surgical abortion patient population. We performed an implementation science study documenting development and operation of a new ...Read more >