Primary Submission Category: Health equity
Using A Lifecourse Perspective to Identify Unmet Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Need and Its Collateral Consequences
Authors: Elizabeth Anderson
Presenting Author: Elizabeth Anderson*
Background: Unmet sexual and reproductive healthcare (SRH) needs are a persistent problem in the United States and have cascading social, economic, and health consequences across women’s lives. However, relatively little is known about how women’s unmet SRH needs are connected across the lifecourse. This study addresses this gap by asking (1) what can we learn about patterns in women’s unmet SRH needs with a lifecourse approach; and (2) what are the collateral consequences of unmet SRH needs in women’s lives?
Methods: This study recruited 43 reproductive-aged women from the Person 2 Person Health Interview Study, an omnibus health survey of Indiana residents, for in-depth interviews with an oversample of women living in rural counties or with low-income. Each interview asked women about their engagement with SRH starting with menarche until present day, with attention to the forces enabling/constraining SRH decisions. Abductive analysis was used to identify common themes and identify surprising findings.
Results: Women living in rural counties and women with low-income often experienced unmet need for SRH other than contraceptive or pregnancy care, such as pelvic prolapse, fibroids, or recurrent ovarian cysts. These women were often unable to access care due to postpartum Medicaid churn, complex comorbidities, and logistical challenges in accessing specialized treatment. These unmet needs for SRH often led to continued suffering, as these women were forced to adapt to the chronic pain associated with these conditions.
Conclusion: This research highlights the utility of the lifecourse perspective in investigating disparities in women’s sexual and reproductive healthcare and the urgent demand for policy interventions to alleviate women’s suffering by identifying the pervasive scope of women’s unmet needs to address chronic sexual and reproductive conditions.