Journal of women's health
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Journal of women's health · Nov 2020
The Role of Public-Private Partnerships to Increase Access to Contraception in an Emergency Response Setting: The Zika Contraception Access Network Program.
The Zika Contraception Access Network (Z-CAN) program was a short-term emergency response intervention that used contraception to prevent unintended pregnancies to reduce Zika-related adverse birth outcomes during the 2016-2017 Zika virus outbreak in Puerto Rico. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that a collaborative and coordinated response was needed from governments and private-sector partners to improve access to contraception during the Zika outbreak in Puerto Rico. In response, the National Foundation for the CDC, with technical assistance from CDC, established the Z-CAN program, a network of 153-trained physicians, that provided client-centered contraceptive counseling and same-day access to the full range of the Food and Drug Administration-approved reversible contraceptive methods at no cost for women who chose to prevent pregnancy. ⋯ Through Z-CAN, public-private partnerships provided a broad range of opportunities for partners to come together to leverage technical expertise, experience, and resources to remove barriers to access contraception that neither the public nor the private sector could address alone. Public-private partnerships focused on three areas: (1) the coordination of efforts among federal and territorial agencies to align strategies, leverage resources, and address sustainability; (2) the mobilization of private partnerships to secure resources from private corporations, domestic philanthropic organizations, and nonprofit organizations for contraceptive methods, physician reimbursement, training and proctoring resources, infrastructure costs, and a health communications campaign; and (3) the engagement of key stakeholders to understand context and need, and to identify strategies to reach the target population. Public-private partnerships provided expertise, support, and awareness, and could be used to help guide programs to other settings for which access to contraception could improve health outcomes.
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Journal of women's health · Nov 2020
Reproductive Health in Women with Physical Disability: A Conceptual Framework for the Development of New Patient-Reported Outcome Measures.
Background: Barriers in the built environment, enduring stereotypes and biases, and limited disability competency of health care providers compromise access to and quality of reproductive health care for women with physical disabilities. One way to improve our understanding of critical factors that drive reproductive health inequity and its impact on access to care is to use patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) that capture relevant and meaningful information about experience. In this study, we developed a conceptual framework as the foundation for relevant and clinically meaningful patient-reported outcome measures targeting the interface of disability and reproductive health. ⋯ Results: Eighty-one women between the ages of 16 and 50 with a self-reported physical disability, defined by an impairment of mobility, participated in 13 focus groups (N = 64) and 17 individual interviews. Five major themes characterized the conceptual framework that emerged-knowledge about reproductive health, communication about reproductive health, relationships, the reproductive health care environment, and self-advocacy/identity-all of which had some relationship with five major reproductive health issues-pregnancy and labor/delivery, periods and menstrual management, contraception, sexuality and sexual functioning, and pelvic examinations. Conclusions: This conceptual framework will serve as a foundation for PROM and guide intervention development to reduce reproductive health inequity and improve reproductive health outcomes of women with physical disabilities.
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Journal of women's health · Nov 2020
How Does Preterm Delivery Contribute to the Increased Burden of Cardiovascular Disease? Quantifying the Economic Impact of Cardiovascular Disease in Women with a History of Preterm Delivery.
Background: The association between preterm delivery (PTD) and maternal risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) was demonstrated, but the economic burden of CVD in these women was unknown. Methods: A Markov microsimulation model, comprising no event, postacute coronary event (ACE, including acute myocardial infarction and unstable angina), poststroke, post-ACE and stroke, postheart failure, and death, was constructed to quantify the CVD burden in women with PTD from 2017 to 2066 using the Australian health care system perspective. Both first-ever and recurrent CVD events were accounted for in the model. ⋯ Both dynamic (i.e., new cohort added every cycle) and static (i.e., population was stabilized) approaches were used to measure the CVD burden, with sensitivity analyses examining the robustness of results. Results: The dynamic model showed the total CVD burden caused by PTD as AUD11.4 billion for the next 50 years and the YLL as 0.34/capita, while the static model generated a cost of AUD4.5 billion and the YLL as 0.52/capita. Long-term management cost was the primary cost determinant (AUD9.4 billion and AUD3.7 billion, respectively) in the two models, with the results most sensitive to the discount rate and time horizon. Conclusions: Considering the substantial economic burden, recognizing PTD as a potential risk factor and encouraging women with PTD histories to participate in primary prevention programs would potentially curb the ever-increasing CVD burden.
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Journal of women's health · Nov 2020
The Role of Gender in the Experience and Impact of Recertification Exam Preparation: A Qualitative Study of Primary Care Physicians.
Background: Little is known about how physicians experience preparing for board recertification examinations. As women make up a growing proportion of the primary care physician workforce, we aimed to explore how primary care physicians experience the personal and professional impacts of recertification examination preparation activities, and whether these impacts differ by gender. Materials and Methods: We conducted exploratory qualitative semistructured interviews with 80 primary care physicians, who had recently taken either the American Board of Family Medicine or American Board of Internal Medicine recertification examination and who practice outpatient care. We used an iterative recruitment approach to obtain a representative sample. ⋯ Physicians most frequently described taking time from personal rather than professional activities to study, but often said this was "no big deal." Physicians described impacts on personal life such as missing out on family or leisure time, conflicts with parenting responsibilities, and an increased reliance on their spouse for domestic and childcare duties. Female physicians more frequently described parenting and leisure time impacts than males did. Conclusions: Recertification examination preparation impacts physicians' personal lives in a variety of ways and are sometimes experienced differently along gendered lines. These findings suggest opportunities for employers, payers, and specialty boards to help physicians ease potential burdens related to maintaining board certification.
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Journal of women's health · Nov 2020
Dimensions of Sexual Orientation as Predictors of STI-Related Outcomes Among Women: An Examination of 2011-2017 National Survey of Family Growth Data.
Background: To estimate sexual orientation associated disparities in sexually transmitted infection (STI)-related outcomes across multiple dimensions of sexual orientation. Methods: Using pooled 2011-2017 National Survey of Family Growth data (N = 16,854), we performed bivariate and multivariable logistic and multinomial regression analyses to estimate associations between sexual identity, behavior in the past 12 months, and attraction, and past-year STI treatment, receipt of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, and age at first HPV vaccination in cisgender women. Results: Bisexual-identified women (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.53, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.10-2.14) and who were sexually active with both men and women in the past 12 months (AOR = 1.64, 95% CI = 1.03-2.55) had significantly higher odds of past-year STI treatment, compared with their nonsexual minority counterparts. Lesbian-identified women (AOR = 0.44, 95% CI = 0.27-0.75) and women with female partners only (AOR = 0.32, 95% CI = 0.12-0.87) had significantly decreased odds of having initiated the HPV vaccine compared with their heterosexual counterparts. Women with both male and female partners who initiated the HPV vaccine had significantly higher odds of having received the vaccine during the latest age range, 18-25 years old (AOR = 2.32, 95% CI = 1.21-4.45) compared with women with male partners only. Conclusions: Sexual minority women continue to be at risk for poor sexual health outcomes, and these outcomes differ by specific components of sexual orientation.