Jacques publishes study in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health

A new study by Laura Jacques, MD, associate professor in the Division of Academic Specialists in Obstetrics and Gynecology, uses anonymous posts on social media to document the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on people’s abortion experiences in the United States.

““I'm going to be forced to have a baby”: A study of COVID-19 abortion experiences on Reddit”, published in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, evaluated three week’s worth of anonymous posts on a Reddit forum about abortion to see how pandemic restrictions affected abortion care. The study team of Jacques, Taryn Valley, Shimin Zhao, Madison Lands, Natalie Rivera, and Jenny Higgins, PhD, MPH, identified a variety of themes in the posts, including access issues, privacy challenges, and more:

“In this study, we documented the stress, fear, and despair experienced by abortion seekers during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic when newly implemented healthcare policies dictated sudden changes to abortion access. Our findings may provide insight into how abortion seekers might experience other sudden changes in abortion access, whether due to future public health emergencies or changes in law and policy.”

Read the whole study here.