The Affordable Care Act and Access to Family Planning and Abortion in California’s Central Valley: A Community-Based Participatory Research Study

Principal Investigators and Research Partners: 

Anu Manchikanti Gomez, PhD (University of California, Berkeley)

Summary and Findings: 

While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) represents an extraordinary expansion of healthcare access, barriers to achieving reproductive health equity persist. This project seeks to investigate how insurer practices can limit and delay access to abortion and family planning care among Latinas in California’s Central Valley, an agricultural region lacking access to abortion providers and inundated by health and social disparities.
In partnership with California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, the timely and policy relevant research will be conducted using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach starting in November 2015. Through a photovoice project and community survey in two sites in the Central Valley, we aim to engage and empower community members as co-researchers, build capacity and translate research into policy advocacy to promote health equity and reproductive justice. 

Funders

Society of Family Planning Research Fund