Do racial and ethnic differences exist in access to family planning and related preventive health services in the United States?

Black and Hispanic women have unintended pregnancy rates that are 2.8 and 2.2 times higher, respectively, than whites. Contraceptive use patterns may account for some of this difference. Although black and Hispanic women use contraceptives at a rate similar to whites, they are less likely than whites to use highly effective reversible methods, but they are more likely to experience accidental failure. Public programs have reduced racial/ethnic and income differences in use of any family planning or preventive gynecological (PG) care. However, racial/ethnic differences in use of specific types of FP and PG services remain.

We use 2002 NSFG data for 3,484 white, black, and Hispanic women at risk of unintended pregnancy to assess whether racial/ethnic group differences exist in the use of any birth control (BC) or any preventive gynecological (PG) services in the past 12 months. For women who report use of any BC (n=2,205) or PG services (n=2,736), we examine whether racial/ethnic differences exist in the types of services received. We estimated bi- and multinomial logistic regression models, using SUDAAN to account for the complex survey design. Results indicate no significant racial/ethnic differences in use of any BC or PG services, some but differences in care content.