Bedsider: But what about men?

The Bedsider.org birth control support network is an evidence-based approach to help women find and use a method of birth control that’s right for them.  It is a response to the gap between intentions and outcomes related to pregnancy; young adults say overwhelmingly that while they don’t want to get pregnant right now, they also are not fully protecting themselves from pregnancy by the careful, consistent use of contraception. Bedsider is built on the assumption that a different way of talking about birth control will affect behavior and the results of a year-long RCT shows that it is working.  Women in the study who used Bedsider were less likely to have unprotected sex and were less likely to have an unplanned pregnancy.  What about men?  Given that an overwhelming amount of methods are for women’s use and that the barriers to proper use involve them only, we determined that the biggest effects could be seen by focusing on that audience.  Moreover, early in the research process we saw that many men were at a different stage of change and thus needed a different kind of intervention.  For men who were already involved in the conversation, our hypothesis was that Bedsider would work.  This session addresses what we know about men’s use of Bedsider and new initiatives to address the stage of change in which many men reside.  The role that human-centered design plays in attacking the excuses to not use birth control for both men and women will be discussed.