Unmet demand for short-acting hormonal and long-acting reversible contraception among community college students in Texas

ABSTRACT

Objective: To identify preferences for and use of short-acting hormonal (e.g., oral contraceptives, injectable contraception) or long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) among community college students in Texas. Participants: Female community college students, ages 18 to 24, at risk of pregnancy, sampled in Fall 2014 or Spring 2015 (N = 966). Methods: We assessed characteristics associated with preference for and use of short-acting hormonal or LARC methods (i.e., more-effective contraception). Results: 47% preferred short-acting hormonal methods and 21% preferred LARC, compared to 21% and 9%, respectively, who used these methods. A total of 63% of condom and withdrawal users and 78% of nonusers preferred a more effective method. Many noted cost and insurance barriers as reasons for not using their preferred more-effective method. Conclusions: Many young women in this sample who relied on less-effective methods preferred to use more-effective contraception. Reducing barriers could lead to higher uptake in this population at high risk of unintended pregnancy.

KEYWORDS:

• Barriers to contraception
• contraceptive preferences
• contraceptive use
• community college students

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Fu-An Lin, Lina Palomares, and Edward Leach for their contributions to the research. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the annual meetings of the Population Association of America, April 1, 2016, Washington, DC and the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, May 30, 2016, Austin, TX. This work was supported by the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (grant number 3862). Infrastructural support was provided by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24 042849) to the Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. Funders of the Texas Policy Evaluation Project have no role in the design and conduct of the research, interpretation of the data, approval of the final manuscript or decision to publish.

Notes

¹ Analyses that included the Houston participants yielded similar results as those presented here

Additional information

Funding

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD042849), Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (3862).