Christine Dehlendorf, UC San Francisco
CCPR Seminar Room 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles"Health Equity in Family Planning and Family Planning Care: Putting the Focus back on Women"
Abstract: Differences in contraceptive use and unintended pregnancy by race/ethnicity are well described. Interpretation of these differences, and how they relate to the desire to achieve health equity, is complex due to the nature of reproduction, including the personal, social and historical context in which reproductive and contraceptive decisions are made. Lack of attention to these contextual factors has the potential to interfere with the ultimate goal of optimizing women’s reproductive health and to exacerbate health inequities. This talk will review data regarding women’s reproductive outcomes and how they vary by their sociodemographic characteristics, and discuss conventional approaches in both public health efforts and clinical family planning care to thinking about and responding to these data. I will then make the case for a woman-centered approach that focuses on individual’s preferences and conceptualizations of reproductive health as the best strategy to meet women’s needs and promote health equity.