ANSIRH research

ANSIRH research: Policy

California SB 24, also known as the College Student Right to Access Act, would expand medication abortion access on California State University (CSU) and University of California (UC) campuses. ANSIRH conducted two studies to estimate the demand for medication abortion among students, and understand the barriers students currently face seeking abortion off-campus, and to evaluate whether student health centers have the capacity to provide medication abortion services on campus.

Evaluation of Abortion Restrictions Project.

ANSIRH’s Evaluation of Restrictions Project aims to examine the effects on women of state-level abortion restrictions and to identify strategies to mitigate the negative impacts. The project started in 2013 and has so far conducted research in ten states and evaluated the effects of a variety of restrictions. We continue to identify states and restrictions to evaluate.

Health Workforce Pilot Project (HWPP) /AB 154.

On January 1, 2014, California enacted legislation (AB 154) culminating a decade worth of work to expand the pool of safe, qualified professionals authorized to provide early abortion care.

Over 70% of religious hospitals are Catholic. Catholic facilities adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Healthcare Services which prohibit abortion, contraception (including tubal-ligation), infertility treatment and more. Catholic hospitals treat 1 out of 6 acute care patients in the United States.

Nearly half of the countries with liberal or liberally interpreted abortion laws had public funding for abortion, including most countries that liberalized their abortion law in the past 20 years. Outliers remain, however, including among developed countries where access to abortion may be limited due to affordability.

Public Health Approaches to Abortion Project.

The Public Health Approaches to Abortion project is a series of projects that aim to ground the public and policy debate about abortion regulation and access in scientific evidence and public health principles. Collectively, these projects serve to re-center scientific evidence and public health professional expertise in discussions of abortion patient safety and health department engagement with abortion.

Catholic hospitals and other religious institutions are a large and growing part of the U.S. health care system. These institutions have specific policies restricting reproductive health care that impact the standard of care delivered.

Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP).

In 2011, and again in 2013, the Texas Legislature passed sweeping legislation impacting reproductive health in Texas, which has a population of 5.4 million women of reproductive age.

Medi-Cal is California’s state Medicaid program, and one of 17 state Medicaid programs that covers abortion and subsequent care. Medi-Cal covers 49% of abortions in California and 8% of abortions in the country. Medi-Cal data present a unique opportunity to understand abortion care because it can be used to track all subsequent care among a cohort of patients having an abortion longitudinally after their abortion with virtually no loss to follow-up. We utilized Medi-Cal data to better understand abortion safety, distance traveled for abortion, and sources of care after abortion.

Banner image (cropped): Photo courtesy of former California Speaker of the Assembly, John Pérez (pictured center) announcing CA law AB 154, allowing nurse midwives, nurse practitioners and physicians assistants to perform abortions, a change that drew heavily on ANSIRH research.

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ANSIRH research: Policy

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