Importance: Access to safe abortion has declined in New England states such as Maine and New Hampshire, where there has been a 20% decrease in the number of abortion clinics between 2011 and 2014.1 This is a core public health issue that affects racial and ethnic minorities and low SES women disproportionately. Primary care physicians ...Read more >

In the US, 11% of reproductive age women report illicit or non-prescription drug use in the past month, with opioids accounting for a large proportion of this use. Among women with opioid use disorder (OUD), 86% of pregnancies are unintended. It has also been shown that women with OUD are less likely to use highly ...Read more >

Amidst widespread efforts to address the unique health needs of resettled refugees in the US, barriers to reproductive healthcare among refugee women remain understudied and poorly understood. As the national political climate becomes increasingly hostile to both refugee and women’s health, a qualitative study of this underserved, vulnerable population’s experience of reproductive healthcare is urgently ...Read more >

Women with opioid and other substance use disorders (SUDs) have an unmet need effective contraceptive methods and high rates of unintended pregnancy. These women often avoid traditional health care settings because of previous poor treatment by providers and fear of criminal justice or child welfare repercussions. This scholarly project seeks to address the clinical problem ...Read more >

Young adult women have higher rates of sexually transmitted infection (STI), unintended pregnancy, and abortion then their older counterparts. This age group also disproportionately experiences cost-related barriers to care. Confidentiality concerns related to insurer practices may obstruct insurance use for sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services by women covered as dependents under a parent’s insurance ...Read more >

Unintended pregnancy is a public health concern. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the US are unintended, with African American women experiencing the most unintended pregnancies. In Wisconsin, 65% of pregnancies resulting in live births to Black mothers are unintended, compared to 38% of pregnancies overall. Several state and federally funded preconception interventions have been ...Read more >

This research project seeks to understand the reproductive healthcare needs of undergraduate students, determine the role that student health services currently provides in access to information and resources, and examine how state narratives regarding reproductive healthcare influence campus services at two large public universities: The University of South Florida and the University of Kentucky. Over ...Read more >

Research on reproduction tends to focus on women. However, men can be quite influential to women’s reproductive decisions. Past research has found that young men perform a hybrid masculinity in which they can support women with contraception but still eschew responsibility for pregnancy prevention. The proposed research uses interviews with 40 American young low-income men ...Read more >

Elevated rates of teen pregnancy and parenting among youth in foster care (YFC) are well documented. Traditional prevention efforts for teen pregnancy utilize parents, schools, and community-based centers to intervene with youth directly or to support a system in which youth are nested. However, for YFC, intervening through these traditional systems is problematic, as they ...Read more >

Adolescent childbearing is a public health concern with significant consequences for teen parents and their children. As prior teen pregnancy prevention efforts have primarily focused on teen mothers with limited attention to teen fathers, gaps remain in understanding male pregnancy intentions, views of abortion, and influences on contraceptive use. Rigid norms about masculinity have been ...Read more >