Despite its critical importance in reproductive health, access to safe abortion care in the US and globally continues to be impaired by laws and policies based on religious, political, or other ideologies. Although there is substantial anecdotal evidence about specific beliefs and rationales for opposing abortion provision, identifying specific attitudes, and exploring how those attitudes ...Read more >

Young transgender men (including young people who are transmasculinizing) face disparities in the provision of reproductive health care including contraception, despite their biologic capacity for pregnancy and evidence that this population has a need and desire for these critical services. There is a paucity of evidence describing the contraceptive preferences of transmasculine patients, with almost ...Read more >

Black women in the US are more likely to experience unintended and short-interval pregnancies, which are associated with increased risk of adverse birth outcomes for mothers and infants. Long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), including the placement of intrauterine devices (IUDs) or implants, is the most effective contraceptive method for reducing unintended and short-interval pregnancies; however, Black ...Read more >

Motivation for contraceptive use hinges on the user’s assumption that they are fertile—capable of conceiving or impregnating. The idea of infertility carries anxiety and stigma for many and, with no way to validate fertility other than attempting pregnancy, may cause people to doubt their reproductive capacity and need for contraception even though they have no ...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 >

Maternal fetal medicine (MFM) physicians work with multidisciplinary teams to diagnose, counsel, and treat women who present with fetal genetic disorders and congenital anomalies. Often, diagnosis occurs at the time of the 18-20 week anatomy ultrasound. If a woman chooses to terminate after having receiving a devastating prognosis, she often faces many barriers. As an ...Read more >