Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Ingrid Dries-Daffner, MPH¹, Belle Taylor-McGhee¹, Sharon Cohen Landau, MPH¹, Magaly Marques, MA², and Caitlin Gerdts². (1) Pharmacy Access Partnership, 614 Grand Avenue, Suite 324, Oakland, CA 94610, 510-272-0150, iddaffner@phi.org, (2) Pacific Institute for Women's Health, 3450 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1000, Los Angeles, CA 90010

Despite progress made to date, certain communities are unaware of the availability of direct access to emergency contraception (EC) in California pharmacies, contributing to significant delays some women experience getting EC. Many African American and Latina teens in particular do not currently seek EC in pharmacies due to lack of awareness and information, as well as concerns regarding discriminatory public perceptions of their sexual and family planning behaviors. Pharmacy Access Partnership and the Pacific Institute for Women's Health (PIWH) collaborated on an initiative to increase access to and awareness of EC among California's adolescents, with particular focus on Latinas and African Americans. Strategies included expanding the network of pharmacies/pharmacists that provide EC and conducting focus groups and community dialogues to identify pharmacy access needs and concerns of Latina and African American young women. Results guided the development and launch of a public education and ad campaign targeting Latina and African American youth as well as trainings for health providers serving adolescents. This presentation highlights the results and lessons learned from the focus groups, community dialogues and social marketing campaign.

Learning Objectives: