Ethnological study of birth timing decisions: a scoping review protocol

Birth timing decisions, a type of reproductive decision-making (RDM), have yet to be explored in the RDM literature through an ethnological lens. Existing literature has generally observed reproductive decisions across broad racial categories, which has not allowed for a nuanced understanding of the cultural factors influencing birth timing decisions. This scoping review aims to answer the following questions: (1) How do different ethnic groups approach birth timing decisions? (1a) What social and structural factors influence birth timing/spacing decisions for different ethnic groups? (1b) What cultural logics emerge during these decision-making processes? Specifically, these questions are explored within the geographical context of the USA, as its diverse demographics, size and availability of data make it an ideal case. This scoping review thus makes two key contributions to the health literature: (1) it explores trends in birth timing decisions, which is a type of RDM that has typically been overlooked in favour of topics such as birth control use and timing, abortions and miscarriages, and wrongful births, and (2) it explores birth timing decisions from an ethnological perspective in a highly relevant context, expanding beyond homogenising race-based categorisations, toward a nuanced understanding of cultural considerations in family planning decisions across the USA.

This scoping review follows the protocol laid out in the extension of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis, for scoping reviews and will use thematic analysis[1]. Using four databases, Medline, Web of Science, the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences and Sociological Abstracts, original research articles have been captured using the attached search strategy, which contains key terms related to both the independent and dependent variables of interest. Results have been filtered to include only studies published in English within the last 20 years (2005 to present) and conducted in the USA. These criteria were implemented using a verified search string. Additional filters for human-only results were applied to the Medline search. All relevant publications have been imported to Covidence, where the authors will independently conduct title/abstract screening and full-text screening, as well as a thematic analysis of the extracted data from the remaining articles that meet the inclusion criteria. The authors aim to organise and synthesise all findings using the attached data extraction table (see supplemental documents).

This study uses existing publications and therefore does not require ethics submission or review. We intend to publish our scoping review in a peer-reviewed journal.

This scoping review protocol has been registered via Open Science Framework (OSF); the preregistration can be found at the following link: https://osf.io/6f4bq.