For Immediate Release
COVID-19 and Delays in Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Care
Contact: Paige Casey
914-740-2100
pcasey@liebertpub.com
New Rochelle, NY, March 30, 2022—Access to contraception was reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. This especially impacted individuals who experienced employment and financial instability, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Women’s Health. Click here to read the article now.
Megan Kavanaugh, DrPH, MPH, from the Guttmacher Institute, and coauthors, identified the prevalence of, and patient and clinic characteristics associated with, delays in access to sexual and reproductive health care due to the COVID-19 pandemic across three states. More than half of respondents in Arizona (57%), 38% in Iowa, and 30% in Wisconsin were unable to access or indicated a delay in accessing sexual and reproductive health care or a contraceptive method due to the COVID-19 pandemic In all three states, individuals who had experienced financial instability due to being out of work, having fallen behind on key payments, or because of a job reduction or loss due to COVID-19 had increased odds of experiencing delays in sexual and reproductive health care.
“Importantly, our findings highlight only a small piece of the larger picture of how individuals’ reproductive autonomy was impeded due to the pandemic,” concluded the investigators. “Further research regarding the extent to which these COVID-19-related delays resulted in subsequent negative consequences for individuals—such as having to rely on less preferred methods of contraception, forego contraception all together, and/or experience unwanted pregnancies—is warranted.”
“Although the researchers demonstrated COVID-19-related delays in access to sexual and reproductive health care, linked to financial instability, the findings revealed no association between health insurance coverage and COVID-19-related access delays,” says Journal of Women’s Health Editor-in-Chief Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women’s Health, Richmond, VA.
About the Journal
Journal of Women’s Health, published monthly, is a core multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the diseases and conditions that hold greater risk for or are more prevalent among women, as well as diseases that present differently in women. Led by Editor-in-Chief Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women’s Health, Richmond, VA, the Journal covers the latest advances and clinical applications of new diagnostic procedures and therapeutic protocols for the prevention and management of women’s healthcare issues. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Journal of Women’s Health website. Journal of Women’s Health is the official journal of the Society for Women’s Health Research.
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research. A complete list of the firm’s more than 100 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.