Our team’s goal is to strengthen human resources for abortion care. Outside of abortion, there is extensive literature documenting need for supportive interventions for workers in helping professions. Abortion providers face highly unique stresses, including being targets of stigma, violence, harassment, and restrictive legislation. To date, the focus of human resources for abortion care has ...Read more >

Americans have an “undermet” need for contraception: While most have access to modern methods, not all use a method that may be ideal for their particular life circumstance, resulting in substantial numbers of unintended pregnancies. The use of long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC), such as IUDs and implants, has been identified as one potentially effective way ...Read more >

Our project aims to develop a psychometrically valid and reliable scale to use in research and in programmatic evaluation to improve clinical care. During the reporting period, project activities focused on planning and launching the multi-phase study, which has both qualitative and quantitative stages. We first developed the study protocol, and then initiated the study: ...Read more >

Objective: We developed and tested MiLARC—a theory-guided, web-based public health intervention designed to deliver accurate, targeted, and comprehensive LARC information in an engaging population-level platform. Methods: Informed by findings from our broader ongoing project to investigate and address multi-level barriers to LARC, we used a theory-guided approach to adapt an existing web-based contraceptive education intervention ...Read more >

Objectives: Increased use of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) could significantly reduce unintended pregnancies, but less than 10% of US women currently use IUDs or implants. A critically understudied aspect of LARC methods and contraception more generally is their sexual acceptability, or their effects on women’s sexuality, which could influence continuation rates and marketing efforts. Methods: ...Read more >

Objectives: to enumerate facilitators of and barriers to the provision of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) in community health centers (CHCs), in order to identify potential points of intervention to better support provision of these methods. Methods: Focus groups discussions (with clinicians and staff who have direct patient contact) and key informant interviews (with administrators) at ...Read more >

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to develop a deeper understanding of the reasons for and experiences with early discontinuation of the contraceptive implant in an adolescent population, and to identify areas of need for improvement in counseling for implant placement and removal. Methods: This is a qualitative study, consisting of semi-structured interviews of ...Read more >

In 2011, the 82nd Texas Legislature enacted four key pieces of legislation restricting access to family planning: the state budget for contraceptive and reproductive health screening provision was cut by two-thirds; a tiered funding system directing funds away from the clinics providing the majority of services was set up; the Women’s Health Program Medicaid waiver ...Read more >

Objectives: Understanding how women are influenced by interpersonal communication about contraception can inform interventions that improve contraceptive use. The aim of our research was to develop the methods and tools needed to conduct a longitudinal cohort study of social networks’ influence on contraceptive use. Methods: We developed survey instruments for the longitudinal cohort study in ...Read more >

Background: Concerns have been raised about the consequences of enthusiastic promotion of long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) for women’s reproductive autonomy, particularly among underserved or vulnerable groups including postpartum women. We developed the Birth Control After Pregnancy decision aid as a strategy for upholding patient-centered decision-making about postpartum contraception and, in particular, supporting access to postpartum ...Read more >