Providing evidence-based care to patients has become an increasingly important part of medical practice, but this aim cannot be achieved without strong scientific research. Legal restrictions on certain types of family planning research may create obstacles to advancing knowledge that supports evidence-based patient care. Specifically, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will not fund “research ...Read more >

The purpose of this research and career development proposal is to provide Bliss Kaneshiro MD, MPH, with funding to mentor early-stage family planning investigators as they become established researchers who implement high quality projects that meet the Society of Family Planning (SFP) Research Priorities. I will mentor early-stage investigators in four projects that meet six ...Read more >

Removing barriers to LARC use has been lauded as an important strategy for reducing unintended pregnancy, yet there has been little attention to women’s experiences of LARC’s “reversibility,” a perceived advantage of LARC over sterilization and a key feature of the life cycle of LARC use. The scant research examining LARC removal indicates that women ...Read more >

Background: Women with a recent history of abortion are at high risk for unintended pregnancy and repeat abortion. Several barriers prevent these women from using more highly effective methods of contraception, such as long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), immediately post-abortion. The role of an individual’s trust in the health care system may be an important component ...Read more >

Objectives: The objective was to compare the outcomes of surgical evacuation procedures after cervical preparation with either osmotic dilators, or mifepristone followed by misoprostol. This was a non-inferiority design to evaluate whether pharmacologic preparation was significantly worse than osmotic/mechanical dilation. Methods: A randomized controlled trial of 50 women was performed, to compare pharmacologic cervical preparation ...Read more >

Background: The intrauterine device is a long-acting, highly effective, reversible contraceptive that may be underutilized due to fear of pain during insertion. To date, in clinical trials, misoprostol, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, paracervical block, and 1 mL of 2% lidocaine gel have been found to be ineffective. Methods: This is a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial evaluating ...Read more >

The objective of this research project is to use qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate women’s ambivalence about committing to long-term contraception when they present for EC and to assess how the selection of the copper IUD versus oral LNG for EC affects future use of an effective method of contraception. The aims of ...Read more >

Background: High-risk sexual behavior, including unprotected sex, is highly prevalent in adolescents (13-17 years old) and exposes them to unintended pregnancy, HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Two explanations for why young people are more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behavior are that individuals do not perceive themselves to be at risk, and ...Read more >

Objectives: To conduct new research that prospectively assesses fertility intentions and pregnancy attitudes using waves of data from a national sample of US women. This work will fill a gap in the growing body of research on these topics by providing insights into the extent to which US women’s fertility intentions change over time and ...Read more >

Background: High rates of unintended pregnancy worldwide demonstrate there is a gap in available contraceptive methods. If developed as planned, the peri-coital contraceptive pill will be an effective and intuitive method that could be taken in a period before or after unprotected sexual intercourse. Yet successful uptake of a new technology relies on concise terminology ...Read more >