Objectives: This study aimed to examine the distance that low-income women travel to obtain an abortion in California, and how the distance they travel influences their post-abortion care – both follow-up and emergency department visits. Methods: We utilized a dataset from California’s state Medicaid program, Medi-Cal, containing claims from every fee-for-service abortion covered in 2011 ...Read more >

Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the proportion of women, presenting for an abortion, who could accurately determine whether their pregnancy was =13 weeks gestation using a gestational wheel. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study with women attending four facilities in Ghana. Interviewers administered a questionnaire and then women were seen by ...Read more >

Objective: To determine the feasibility and effect size of an emergency department (ED)- based intervention using text messaging (TM) to improve contraception initiation among underserved adolescent females at high risk of pregnancy. Methods: This was a prospective pilot randomized controlled study. Eligible females were 14–19 years old, sexually active, presenting for reproductive health complaints and ...Read more >

Background: Some women must travel substantial distances in order to access abortion services, and this can present a barrier to care. This study assesses how far abortion patients traveled to a provider in 2008 and which groups were more likely to travel farther. Methods: We used data from a national sample of 8,338 abortion patients ...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 >

Population-based registries are essential public health information systems that provide data to support improvements in patient care and clinical decision-making. There are significant gaps in the data around contraceptive safety and efficacy for women with complex medical conditions. As medical advances in the US allow women with complex medical conditions to live through their reproductive ...Read more >

Transmasculine individuals – i.e., people assigned a female sex at birth who self-identify as men, male, transgender men, female-to-male (FTM), or a non-binary gender identity along the masculine continuum – are at risk of unintended pregnancy. However, transmasculine people face substantial barriers to health care that may undermine their access to and utilization of contraceptive ...Read more >

The etonogestrel (ENG) implant is the most effective contraceptive method available. However, its use is complicated in high-HIV prevalence settings: data show reduced implant contraceptive efficacy during efavirenz-based antiretroviral therapy (ART), the first-line ART in resource-poor areas, due to drug-drug interactions. New, more effective strategies for concomitant ART-implant use need to be identified. Dolutegravir-based ART, ...Read more >

Sexual minority females (i.e., lesbians and bisexuals) are at an increased risk for teen pregnancy and need access to abortion services. This population reports established risk factors for teen pregnancy, such as earlier sexual initiation, more frequently than heterosexuals. It has been suggested, though not empirically examined, that this group of young women may have ...Read more >

Objectives: We assessed the incidence of abortion-related emergency department (ED) visit use in the US. Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational study using 2009-2013 data from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS), a nationally representative sample of US ED visits. We estimated the proportion of ED visits among women of reproductive age that were for ...Read more >