College of Public Health Research Team Featured in Benchmarks
Researchers at ETSU are using a multimillion-dollar grant, one that represents the largest garnered in recent history at the university, to evaluate the effectiveness of a statewide initiative in South Carolina to prevent unintended pregnancies.
Unintended pregnancies – those that are unwanted or mistimed – represent a major public
health challenge. Across
the nation, approximately 45 percent of pregnancies are unintended, according to research.
In the southeast, research indicates that more than half of pregnancies are unintended.
“Unintended pregnancies occur more frequently in young, low-income and minority women, and are generally associated with poorer health and economic outcomes for the child, the mother and their families,” said Dr. Amal Khoury, chair of the Department of Health Services Management and Policy in the College of Public Health and principal investigator on the evaluation grant.
In South Carolina, Choose Well, a contraceptive access initiative of the New Morning Foundation, is a statewide collaboration that seeks to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancy through a range of collaborative efforts with health care systems, providers, non-profit organizations, professional associations, policy systems and community leaders.
Last year, ETSU was awarded a competitive grant from a private funder to conduct a large-scale, independent evaluation of the Choose Well Initiative. The evaluation includes sub-projects that focus on the specific impact of the Choose Well Initiative on women seeking reproductive health care; primary care providers including physicians and advanced practice nurses; health system capacity and scope of services; implementing agencies and health policies; and population-based outcomes.
The results of this evaluation will help elucidate the impact of the Choose Well Initiative on unintended pregnancies and their determinants; the sustainability of the initiative and its components; and the essential elements that would be necessary to launch similar initiatives elsewhere. The research will also provide important insight on how individuals and families make reproductive health decisions, and how providers can more effectively counsel their patients around family planning.
More than a dozen ETSU faculty and staff members are a part of the evaluation team. Lead investigators include Drs. Khoury, Nathan Hale, Michael Smith, Kate Beatty, Joel Hillhouse, Katie Baker and Debbi Slawson. The project is expected to take six years.
“This is an exciting opportunity to help organizations across the United States, and especially in the Southeast, that are working with limited resources to better understand the types of programmatic efforts that really help prevent unintended pregnancies,” said Smith, research assistant professor and project director. “Our goal is to be able to make conclusions that are both scientifically valid and useful to public health leaders in developing strategies to improve the health of their communities.”
Hale, assistant professor of health management and policy and co-principal investigator added that ETSU has “always been committed to improving the lives of women and their families” and noted that “this is a significant opportunity for our university to engage in research and evaluation that will be at the forefront of shaping national health policy."