Presenter: Charlotte Faye Gilson
Faculty Sponsor: Deborah Keisch
School: UMass Amherst
Research Area: Medical Sciences
Session: Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, Auditorium, A8
ABSTRACT
A growing body of literature outlines the need for medication abortion (MAB) in university student health centers (USHCs); however, there is little published about the experience of implementing the service into practice, including the barriers and facilitators of doing so. This research aims to contribute to existing reproductive health literature by highlighting the barriers and facilitators of implementing a MAB program at Massachusetts USHCs and offering recommendations to mitigate prominent barriers.
In this session, I will present the preliminary results of a qualitative study that will address these questions. Data collection consists of 10-20 semi-structured interviews with medical providers and healthcare staff working at USHCs. Purposive and snowball sampling ensure a well-rounded sample, and providers at universities that both offer and do not offer MAB are invited to participate. Rapid analysis of each interview transcript will underscore major themes amongst the data, and recommendations will be deduced from these findings. The following barriers and facilitators are anticipated to arise in interviews by the end of data collection: student engagement with reproductive justice initiatives (e.g., student advocacy groups), funding, practice-specific champions, legislative guidance, staff and leadership capacity, and institutional values. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research will be used to categorize and present the themes.
Access to healthcare remains a leading issue in the U.S., and this research aims to inspire improvements to college students’ access to reproductive healthcare by identifying the most prevalent barriers and facilitators to implementing a MAB program at Massachusetts USHCs.
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