Reproductive Health Care Access for College Students During and After Disasters

• In Event: 50620 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Disasters, Health, and Inequalities

Abstract

College students are disproportionately affected by restrictions to reproductive health resources, such as abortions. College students face cost, scheduling, and travel barriers to reproductive and abortion care, especially since many university campuses do not offer on-campus abortion services. This is particularly the case for students that are first-generation, racially marginalized, economically disadvantaged, immigrants, and/or young parents. Further, college students are particularly vulnerable to disasters as they are young, typically not financially independent, and often live in dormitories and/or away from their families and other support systems. Depending on where they grew up, college students may also not be familiar with local hazards and how to prepare or respond to disasters in the region where they go to school. However, how disasters affect college students’ reproductive health access, behaviors, and aspirations is unclear. It is likely that the challenges students face with regard to accessing reproductive health resources are exacerbated by disaster. It is also possible that the long-term disruptions after a disaster influence how college students think about their family planning aspirations. Thus, this study intends to answer the following research questions: 1) What disaster-related factors affect college students’ reproductive health access, behaviors, and aspirations? And 2) In what ways do disasters affect college students’ reproductive health access, behaviors, and aspirations? To address this gap, this study will involve distributing a web survey to understand how disasters affect college students' access to reproductive health resources, their reproductive health behaviors, and their family planning aspirations. We aim to have a diverse pool of participants to understand the factors that affect a wide range of U.S. college students (aged 18-23), including those that are a part of marginalized racial and ethnic groups, women of color, pregnant, low-income, immigrants/international, parents, and who speak English as a second language.

Authors

• Melissa Villarreal, ORISE

• Sarah Elizabeth DeYoung, University of Delaware