Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 25, 2025
A Novel Method for Involving Women of Color at High Risk for Preterm Birth in Research Priority Setting
Published on: January 12, 2018
Estimating the Period Prevalence of Mothers Who Have Abortions: A Population Based Study of Inclusive Pregnancy
James Studnicki1, John W Fisher1, Tessa Longbons1
1Charlotte Lozier Institute, Arlington, VA, USA.
Introduction:
The prevalence of induced abortion among women with children has been estimated indirectly by projections derived from survey research. However, an empirically derived, population-based conclusion on this question is absent from the published literature.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to describe the period prevalence of abortion among all other possible pregnancy outcomes within the reproductive histories of Medicaid-eligible women in the U.S.
Methods:
A retrospective, cross-sectional, longitudinal analysis of the pregnancy outcome sequences of eligible women over age 13 from the 17 states where Medicaid included coverage of most abortions, with at least one identifiable pregnancy between 1999 and 2014. A total of 1360 pregnancy outcome sequences were grouped into 8 categories which characterize various combinations of the 4 possible pregnancy outcomes: birth, abortion, natural loss, and undetermined loss. The reproductive histories of 4,884,101 women representing 7,799,784 pregnancy outcomes were distributed into these categories.
Results:
Women who had live births but no abortions or undetermined pregnancy losses represented 74.2% of the study population and accounted for 87.6% of total births. Women who have only abortions but no births constitute 6.6% of the study population, but they are 53.5% of women with abortions and have 51.5% of all abortions. Women with both births and abortions represent 5.7% of the study population and have 7.2% of total births.
Conclusion:
Abortion among low-income women with children is exceedingly uncommon, if not rare. The period prevalence of mothers without abortion is 13 times that of mothers with abortion.
Related Concept Videos
01:24Testing a Claim about Population Proportion
There are two methods of testing a claim about a population proportion: (1) Using the sample proportion from the data where a binomial distribution is approximated to the normal distribution and (2) Using the binomial probabilities calculated from the data.
The first method uses normal distribution as an approximation to the binomial distribution. The requirements are as follows: sample size is large...
01:52Regression Toward the Mean
01:20Sample Proportion and Population Proportion
01:23Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast,...
01:08Prevalence and Incidence
Prevalence indicates the proportion of individuals in a population who have a specific disease or health...
01:09Odds Ratio