Using a CBPR approach with college students to map emergency contraception availability in New York City Pharmacies

Emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) can effectively prevent pregnancy after sex. For adolescents and young adults, timely access to ECPs is essential to prevent unintended pregnancies in cases where no method was used, it was used improperly, or where sex was forced.

Undergraduate students from four different colleges at the City University of New York (CUNY) partnered with researchers from the Healthy CUNY initiative to develop a mapping study of ECP over-the-counter (OTC) availability in New York City pharmacies, using a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach. The team of CUNY partners collaborated with Bedsider.org, a birth control support network, to locate ECP availability in pharmacies.

The team used a web-based data collection tool with items tailored to concerns of college students, such as ‘availability of self-checkout’ for increased discretion, photographic data capturing price and brand variety, and notes about the overall experience.  The goal of collecting these data is to help young people in the CUNY community and Bedsider’s target audience of young adults to make confident decisions about where and how to obtain ECPs OTC. The data collection tool and protocol were piloted and iteratively refined to improve validity and reliability.  The team also developed a mapping strategy that first audits pharmacies proximate to 19 CUNY campuses, and then throughout the borough of Manhattan.

This partnership uses a CBPR approach, pooling resources from CUNY students, researchers and Bedsider.org to make it easier for college students and other young people to access ECPs when they need them.