Geographic Access to Family Planning Facilities and the Risk of Unintended and Teenage Pregnancy

Abstract

This study found no relationship between greater geographic availability of family planning facilities and a risk of unintended pregnancies. Greater geographic availability of family planning services was associated with a higher risk of teenage pregnancy, although these results may be confounded by facilities locating in areas with greater family planning needs.

Does Distance Matter? Access to Family Planning Clinics and Adolescent Sexual Behaviors

“…To some degree, these findings parallel results indicating that youth who lived more 30 min from a FPC were less likely to become pregnant [10]. Younger youth may be more negatively influenced by greater availability of FPCs.…”

“…Availability of community-based family planning clinics (FPCs) is one such contextual factor that has received limited attention [8–10]. Some research suggests that physical availability of and access to FPCs may reduce adolescents’ risk for early sexual intercourse and increase the likelihood of effective contraceptive use [11–14].…”

“…More recently, Bishai et al [11] found that the per capita number of FPCs was inversely related to the likelihood of adolescents having sex and the reported number of sexual partners. Conversely, one study using a more sophisticated measure of distance (travel time from the center point of an adolescent’s ZIP Code area to nearest FPC), found that adolescents for whom availability was higher were actually at greater risk for pregnancy [10]. …”

Access to assisted reproductive technology centers in the United States

“…Access to ART centers in the United States. Fertil Steril 2010. facilities (11)(12)(13)(14). These analyses afford investigators to begin quantifying the geographic burden of health care services, defined as travel time from a patient's residence to the nearest health care service facility.…”

Fifty Years of Unintended Births: Education Gradients in Unintended Fertility in the US, 1960–2013

“…The differences in access that persist, in turn, may explain continued education gradients in unintended fertility (Goodman et al. ; Dehlendorf et al. ).…”