Funding Family Planning in Ohio

Title X of the Public Health Service Act was created in 1970 such that “no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition”. The program is the nation's only effort devoted strictly to reducing unintended pregnancy by providing contraceptive services and other reproductive health care services to low-income women. Unfortunately, forty years after its inception, outcomes that it was designed to prevent are continually increasing. In 2006 in Ohio, 190 publicly funded family planning centers provided contraceptive care to 193,400 women, including 59,800 teenagers. Unfortunately, less than half of these planning centers (79/190) received Title X funding support in 2006, thus meeting only 19% of the total need in the state. Additionally, federal funding for family planning programs has been eroding slowly over the past decade. In fiscal year 2008, the program received almost $300 million in funding, which continued the funding decline. The objectives are represented by the following: (1) funding by agency for the period 2008-2009 for all 88 counties of Ohio will be compared with several measures of reproductive health and wellness, including changes in annual county rates of sexually transmitted diseases, reproductive cancers, and prenatal care; (2) I propose a funding formula in order to show how allocation of Title X funding can be implemented with a capitation methodology, using a state-wide needs assessment; and (3) I offer a new method for how an evaluation assessment should be conducted after the initial funding year, using county performance indicators.