Detecting underreporters of abortions and miscarriages in the national study of family growth, 2011–2015

Abstract

This paper draws on individual-level data from the National Study of Family Growth (NSFG) to identify likely underreporters of abortion and miscarriage and examine their characteristics. The NSFG asks about abortion and miscarriage twice, once in the computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) part of the questionnaire and the other in the audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI) part. We used two different methods to identify likely underreporters of abortion and miscarriage: direct comparison of answers obtained from CAPI and ACASI and latent class models. The two methods produce very similar results. Although miscarriages are just as prone to underreporting as abortions, characteristics of women underreporting abortion differ somewhat from those misreporting miscarriages. Underreporters of abortions tended to be older, poorer, less likely to be Hispanic or Black, and more likely to have no religion. They also reported more traditional attitudes toward sexual behavior. By contrast, underreporters of miscarriage also tended to be older, poorer, and more likely to be Hispanic or Black, but were also more likely to have children in the household, had fewer pregnancies, and held less traditional attitudes toward marriage.

Estimating unintended pregnancy and induced abortion in Liberia: A nationally representative cross-sectional survey

“…First, administrative health records on induced abortion are often inaccurate and incomplete. In addition, research has consistently shown that women responding to social surveys are likely to underreport experiences with abortion (11,12), and women presenting with post-abortion complications in facilities often report induced abortions as miscarriages (13). As a result of these di culties, there is very little available evidence on abortion in Liberia.…”