Objectives: To test the association between having an abortion and subsequent depression, in a nationally representative and longitudinal dataset, controlling for pre-pregnancy depression. Methods: Data from four waves of the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health were utilized. Multivariate logistic regression models were employed to test the relationship between having an abortion and subsequent depression. ...Read more >

The family planning research program at Oregon Health & Science University provides a unique and diverse opportunity for junior investigators to be involved in both basic and clinical investigation. As someone who has been the beneficiary of excellent mentoring and a mentored scholar award (K12), I have had a long-standing commitment to mentoring students, residents, ...Read more >

Epilepsy, a poorly understood and often stigmatized disorder, affects more than one million women and girls in the US, making it the most common neurological disorder in females of reproductive age. The disorder is characterized by the occurrence of seizures, which increase the risks of morbidity and mortality and decrease quality of life. For this ...Read more >

Family planning is a field in which individual and public health goals are frequently aligned: when women receive patient-centered reproductive health care, the entire population benefits. As a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded physician-scientist and family planning program director, I am committed to fueling the pipeline of investigators who will contribute to high-impact reproductive ...Read more >

A healthcare system in which 37-51% of women who desire postpartum sterilization are unable to obtain one due to a lack of a valid signed Medicaid consent form is not delivering patient-centered, medically-appropriate, nor ethically-sound care. Sensitive, thoughtful, and careful considerations are required when approaching this topic due to its complex social and cultural backdrop. ...Read more >

Background: Patient-centered communication about medical and surgical early abortion methods is central to women’s satisfaction with their abortion care experience. Indeed, women value its core principles—receiving quality information, establishing rapport with health professionals, and expressing their preferences—when making decisions about early abortion methods. Yet, in a time of growing inaccessibility to abortion services, biased resources, ...Read more >

Women in the US face an increasingly hostile climate towards abortion. Many now live in states where their ability to exercise their right to choose is in jeopardy. Focusing on Texas, my overarching goal is to inform strategies to increase access to safe medical abortion outside the formal healthcare setting (OFHS) via two routes: 1) ...Read more >

Adolescent pregnancy prevention is a public health priority. Most adolescents rely on condoms, with fewer using effective hormonal methods, such as combined oral contraceptive pills (COCs). One reason is that hormonal methods other than emergency contraception (EC) require a provider visit, a barrier for adolescents who may not have transportation, may not have money, or ...Read more >

Background: The number of Bhutanese refugees in the US continues to grow with insufficient knowledge of current family planning practices of this community. Refugee women face additional barriers that prevent them from obtaining adequate healthcare. Methods: We analyzed the current attitudes and practices regarding pregnancy, contraception, social norms, and abortion in the Bhutanese community. A ...Read more >

For this Junior Investigator Career Development Grant, I completed a rigorous research and training program to develop my skills conducting abortion-related research. For my research project, I joined a team of collaborators at the University of California, San Francisco and in Nepal on two abortion research studies, one examining the experiences of Nepali women who ...Read more >