Women ages 18-29 years, Black women, and those of low social status have the highest rates of unintended pregnancy in the US. Enhancing our understanding of young Black women’s family planning care experiences is crucial to improving the quality of patient care and health outcomes and reducing reproductive health disparities. When young age is combined ...Read more >

Reports show that teen pregnancy rates have been declining in the US for the past two decades. However, this broad brushstroke statistic does not reflect rural America, specifically rural Missouri. Twenty-two rural Missouri counties have teen pregnancy rates well above the national average of 43 per 1,000 and 14 of those counties saw an increase ...Read more >

Nationwide rates of incarceration for women have increased compared to rates of their male counterparts. Women in jails and prisons across the US are often of reproductive age and disproportionately include ethnic minorities who are less educated and often impoverished, creating one of the most vulnerable populations in our country. Multiple studies have demonstrated high ...Read more >

The majority of Americans believe that women should be able to choose freely between abortion and pregnancy. However, for many women, this ”choice” is simply unavailable. There are a multitude of barriers to abortion access in the US, which in effect, prevent women from making their own decisions about pregnancy. These barriers include the availability ...Read more >

While recent studies show that there are barriers identified to providing medical abortions, there are clinics and physicians that overcome these barriers to provide the service. Prior research has not specifically identified barriers preventing doctors from providing medical abortions in South Dakota. Currently, Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (PPMNS) is the sole provider ...Read more >

Young women, those of lower socioeconomic status, women of color, as well as women living in Southern states continue to bear the highest burdens of unintended pregnancy in the US. Existing literature indicates that these same populations also have lower rates of contraceptive use, with lower rates often attributed to unequal access to family planning ...Read more >

Abortion has long been a contentious political issue in the US. While larger societal and political factors increasingly impede abortion access, the political rhetoric on abortion primarily focuses on the “right to choose” and therefore on individual women, as the primary, autonomous decision-makers for abortion. Rather than conceptualizing choice as an individual process, my project ...Read more >

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) events pose a significant health risk for women who use combined oral contraceptives (COCs). COCs are composed of an estrogen (most commonly ethinyl estradiol) and a synthetic progestogen (progestin). The dose-dependent relationship between estrogen exposure and VTE risk is well studied, and is due to changes in hepatic globulins mediated by activity ...Read more >

Dr. Craddock is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Her research centers on using computational social science to address sexual health and HIV disparities in complex adaptive systems (networks). Her scholarship utilizes innovative social network methods and artificial intelligence technologies to examine how social network dynamics and social media ...Read more >

Dr. Desai’s work has focused on improving the sexual and reproductive health of communities, primarily in the US, at local and national levels. These efforts have included designing and evaluating community-based maternal health interventions, collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams to advance evidence-based policy reform on abortion provision, and contributing seminal evidence on immigrants’ use of abortion ...Read more >