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Increased access to birth control led to higher graduation rates among young women in Colorado, according to a study following the debut of the 2009 Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CPFI). The study identified a statistically significant 1.66 percentage-point increase in high school graduation among young women one year after the initiative was introduced. The findings provide concrete evidence for the rationale behind the U.S. Title X program, which calls for access to reproductive health services for low-income and uninsured residents, in part to help ensure women s ability to complete their education. However, at a time when funding for family planning programs is debated, robust scientific evidence to support this claim has been lacking. To investigate the link between access to contraception and educational attainment for women, Amanda Stevenson and colleagues explored the impact of the CPFI, which provided funding that made contraceptives available in Colorado Tit
Abstract
Does access to the full range of contraceptive methods increase young women’s educational attainment? Family planning programs are often justified by claims that it does, but contemporary evidence is unexpectedly weak. We use a natural experiment afforded by a 2009 Colorado policy change to assess the impact of expanded access to contraception on women’s high school graduation. Linking survey and Census data, we follow a population-representative U.S. sample, including large subsamples of young women living in Colorado in 2010 and in comparison states. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find expansion of access to contraception was associated with a statistically significant 1.66 percentage-point increase in high school graduation. This increase in graduation represents a 14% decrease in the baseline percentage not graduating high school before the policy change. Results are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests. Our findings indicate that improving access
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When access to free and low-cost birth control goes up, the percentage of young women who leave high school before graduating goes down by double-digits, according to a new CU Boulder-led study published May 5 in the journal
Science Advances.
The study, which followed more than 170,000 women for up to seven years, provides some of the strongest evidence yet that access to contraception yields long-term socioeconomic benefits for women. It comes at a time when public funding for birth control is undergoing heated debate, and some states are considering banning certain forms. One of the foundational claims among people who support greater access to contraception is that it improves women s ability to complete their education and, in turn, improves their lives, said lead author and Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Stevenson, noting that those claims have been based largely on anecdotal evidence. This study is the first to provide rigorous, quantitative, contempor
About the Webinar
Changes and updates are coming to the ACOG Practice Bulletin on long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), highlighting new studies and data from the CHOICE Project, the Colorado Family Planning program, and other independent studies. Revisions will be published in the November 2017 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology and include expanded and updated evidence-based guidance on new IUDs on the market, postpartum and postabortion LARC, and guidance on use of LARC by nulliparous and adolescent women. This webinar, presented by Eve Espey, MD, MPH and Lisa Hofler, MD, MPH, MBA, will review updated LARC use data from various studies, the benefits and challenges of immediate postpartum LARC, recommendations for effective patient counseling, gynecologic procedures that can take place without removal of an IUD, as well as how to manage pregnancies that occur with a LARC device in place. This free Update on LARC: Revised Clinical Guidance from ACOG webinar from the ACOG LARC