Congrats to Dr. Ellison for receiving third place on her poster focusing on contraceptive service use among tradition Medicare and Medicare advantage enrollees at last weekend's Society of Family Planning's Annual Conference!
Inequities in access to contraception based on ability to pay interferes with individuals’ reproductive autonomy, as shown by Dr. Kavanaugh's study examining the impact of a 2017 state-level policy in Iowa. Findings show that receipt of recent contraceptive care decreased, disrupting access to sexual and reproductive health care. This study supports the growing body of lit that supportive payment and funding strategies for contraception allow people to access the contraception they need.
Today is World Prematurity Day and we want to highlight the work of Dr. Judy Chang whose recent research looked at future pregnancy considerations after a premature birth of an infant requiring intensive care.
The loss of control in predicting or preventing a future preterm birth and uncertainty about their child's future medical needs resulted in:
- Participants describing their preterm birth and their infants' NICU hospitalization as traumatic and impacting plans for future pregnancies.
Drs. Lisa Callegari and Sonya Borrero led a cross sectional study to understand the perceived quality of contraceptive counseling in the VA primary care and assess factors associated with perceived high- and low-quality contraceptive counseling. Based on their findings, more opportunities exist to improve the quality of contraceptive counseling, including more consistent efforts to seek patients' perspectives with respect to contraceptive decisions.
Drs. Lucas Berenbrok and Marian Jarlenski discuss the need for reduced barriers to contraception and how over the counter and how pharmacist provision of contraception can help increase reproductive health care access across the country.
Dr. Mehret Birru Talabi and her team discuss the impacts of overturning Roe v. Wade on patients with rheumatic diseases, including:
Read more: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/art.42336
Deirdre Quinn, PhD, MSc is one of VHA Shark Tank's finalists! Her promising practice, Contraception on Demand (COD) offers VA facilities the opportunity to expand contraceptive access for Veterans, improve Veteran experiences with reproductive healthcare at VA, and expand VA clinical pharmacists' scope of practice and job satisfaction. The practice is easy to adopt and implement and is achievable at very low cost to the individual facility and an estimated cost savings for the health system at large.
Learn more here: https://marketplace.va.gov/innovations/contraception-on-demand
Deirdre Quinn, PhD, MSc is one of VHA Shark Tank's finalists! Her promising practice, Contraception on Demand, employs two evidence-based strategies, pharmacist-led contraceptive prescribing and 12-month dispensing, to increase contraceptive access for Veterans, improve Veterans’ experiences with VA reproductive healthcare, and meaningfully expand VA clinical pharmacists’ scope of practice.
Director Dr. Sonya Borrero and Associate Director Dr. Marian Jarlenski found significant barriers in obtaining timely oral emergency contraception in southwestern Pennsylvania in this recent study.
