Past Research Projects

Abortion as a Part of Reproductive Health and Justice Efforts in Wisconsin: Landscape and Leader Power Mapping

CORE has partnered with UBUNTU Research and Evaluation to execute three aims in this project: conduct a needs assessment regarding abortion’s role in the work of reproductive health and justice organizations in post-Roe Wisconsin; using the data collected, develop a power map of resources, strategies, actors, assets, obstacles, and opportunities related to abortion-related efforts; and create a virtual community database of reproductive health and justice networks and other community-facing resources designed to support stakeholders in achieving their organizational goals related to abortion. CORE will use the results to continue to build our network, inform engagement resource allocation, and identify new coalitions and partnerships.

Project director: Zakiyyah Sorensen, RN, BSN; co-investigators and staff: Jenny Higgins, PhD, MPH; Monique Liston, PhD; Annie Menzel, PhD; Mfonobong Ufot, BS; Sojourner White, MSW

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Evidence-Based Policy Making: The Role of Experts in Reproductive Health Legislation in Wisconsin

State legislative committee hearings provide a primary venue for public participation in the policymaking process. In addition to providing legislators a gauge of public sentiment on particular bills, these hearings are also one of the few opportunities for experts to educate legislators on issues. This study examines who testifies in committee hearings on bills concerning reproductive health in Wisconsin and documents the barriers to providing testimony by experts in this field.

Co-principal investigators: Daniela Mansbach, PhD, Alisa Von Hagel, PhD; research assistants: Rachel Dyer, MS; Emma Romell

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Experiences of Wisconsinites Who Consider or Seek Abortion in a Post-Roe Wisconsin: Impacts on Health and Wellbeing

Abortion-restrictive policies place unnecessary burdens on and undermine people’s reproductive autonomy. This project will document the health, wellbeing, and social consequences of Wisconsinites restricted from obtaining desired abortion services. The team will draw data using three strategies: abortion clinic recruitment, prenatal clinic recruitment, and online recruitment of Wisconsinites. Mixed-method research strategies include online surveys and interviews. Results from these three interconnected studies will contribute to a critical evidence base for legislative and advocacy efforts in the coming years.

Principal investigator: Jenny Higgins, PhD, MPH; co-investigators and staff: Elizabeth Albert, MA; Leigh Senderowicz ScD, MPH; Jane Seymour, PhD, MPH; Mfonobong Ufot, BS

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Impacts of Access to Contraception and Abortion Services on Men’s Life Course Outcomes

The life course impacts of contraceptive and abortion access for women as well as the next generation are well documented. Much less research has explored the impacts of these developments for men. This project estimates the effects of access to contraception and abortion on adult men’s outcomes.

Principal investigator: Jason Fletcher, PhD; research assistants: Meg Carroll; Renee Kramer, PhD, MPH; Joanna Venator, PhD

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Impacts of Poverty Reduction on Achieving Reproductive Health: Leveraging Findings from the Baby’s First Years Study

This project expands an existing study, Baby’s First Years, which estimates the effects of an unconditional cash gift of $4,000 a year for low-income mothers, to include more content on reproductive dignity. Adding this content will create an opportunity to understand the extent to which economic resources affect mothers’ ability to obtain the types of services and contraception they want, as well as more generally their ability to act in accordance with their own reproductive goals.

Principal investigator: Katherine Magnuson, PhD; research assistant: Molly Costanzo

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Patient and Provider Experiences with Medication Abortion in Wisconsin

No studies have examined medication abortion in light of 2012 Wisconsin legislation regarding the delivery of this healthcare service. This project uses qualitative methods to document reproductive healthcare providers’ experiences of medication abortion care delivery in Wisconsin and the impact these laws have on patient experiences.

Co-principal investigators: Laura Jacques, MD; Jenny Higgins, PhD, MPH; project director: Emma Carpenter, PhD, MSW, research assistants: Barbara Alvarez, MLIS; Corrine Hale; Taryn Valley; Meghan Zander

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People’s Abortion Barriers, Decisions, and Experiences as Documented in Anonymous Online Spaces

Accessing a desired abortion can be legally and logistically complicated, time-consuming, and expensive. Much of the research on abortion experiences thus far has taken place in clinical settings, after patients have already navigated systems and been able to access abortion care.

This project uses hundreds of anonymous posts to a widely used online social media platform to examine the real-time barriers and facilitators that abortion seekers encounter, as well as examine how people make abortion decisions and kinds of information and resources they seek. Team members conducted analyses with data from both before and immediately following the rise of COVID-19, allowing for glimpses into how the pandemic uniquely affected people’s abortion experiences.

Co-principal investigators: Jenny Higgins, PhD, MPH; Laura Jacques, MD; research assistants: Barbara Alvarez, MLIS; Emma Carpenter, PhD, MSW; Madison Lands, MSW, MPH; Natalie Rivera, MS; Taryn Valley; Natalie Weill, BSN-RN, MPA; Shimin Zhao, MA

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Physician Attitudes toward Abortion Access at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health

Physicians’ attitudes about health issues—including abortion—can affect public understanding and policy. Little research has assessed abortion-related attitudes and practices of physicians outside the reproductive health sphere. To address this gap, investigators surveyed all University of Wisconsin-Madison clinical faculty about their attitudes and knowledge about abortion.

Co-principal investigators: Nicholas Schmuhl, PhD; Cynthie Wautlet, MD, MPH; co-investigators: Laurel Rice, MD; Jenny Higgins, PhD, MPH

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Religious Restrictions on Reproductive Healthcare: Wisconsin Patient Perspectives

Religiously-owned hospitals, which­ may restrict critical reproductive health services, comprise a large share of hospitals in Wisconsin. However, little is known about how women experience care restrictions in religious health care settings.

In this study, we are fielding a population-representative survey of reproductive-aged women in order to understand Wisconsin patients’ preferences for and firsthand experiences with religious healthcare. We also include a sizeable sample of residents in rural communities, including those in which religious health care is the only feasible option for inpatient care.

Principal investigator: Jenny Higgins, PhD, MPH; co-investigators: Renee Kramer, MPH, PhD; Lori Freedman, PhD; Debra Stulberg, MD

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Reproductive Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors in the Wisconsin Communication Ecology

While reproductive policies are a matter of intense debate by the current Wisconsin state legislature, we know very little about residents’ knowledge and attitudes in this policy area and how these matters connect to individuals’ political knowledge, preferences, and civic participation.

This study seeks to understand what Wisconsinites’ attitudes about reproductive policies are, how much they know about reproductive rights in their state, and what kinds of appeals are more likely to hold their attention, change their views, and spur them to action. The study includes panel surveys in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Georgia, and Ohio, and combines information from social media, news coverage, legislative behavior, and election data.

Principal investigator: Michael Wagner, PhD; research assistant: Jianing Li

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Sexual Acceptability’s Role in Women’s Contraceptive Preference and Behavior

Many people are unsatisfied with their contraceptive method, and the majority discontinue their method after several months of use. A critical but understudied influence on contraceptive behavior is sexual acceptability, or contraception’s effects on sexuality.

This NIH-funded study (R01 HD095661-01) investigates sexual acceptability of six reversible contraceptive methods among approximately 2,000 new-start contraceptive users over time, with the ultimate goals of more satisfied and consistent contraceptive users and less frequent unwanted pregnancy.

Principal investigator: Jenny Higgins, PhD, MPH; co-investigators: Jessica Sanders, PhD, MPH (Utah site principal investigator); Bethany Everett, PhD; David Turok, MD, MPH; Leigh Senderowicz, ScD; research assistants: Renee Kramer, PhD, MPH; Kelsey Wright, MPH

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The Consequences of Abortion Restrictions for Intimate Partner Violence and Child Welfare Involvement

This project will investigate the unintended effects of restrictive state abortion laws about mandatory waiting periods on the prevalence of intimate partner violence, intimate partner homicide, and the degree to which families are involved in the child welfare system – bridging a prominent gap in the existing research literature. This work is part of an effort to build a rigorous evidence base regarding the broader impacts of abortion restrictions on individual and family health and wellbeing.

Co-principal investigators: Christine Durrance, PhD; Yang Wang, PhD; co-investigator: Barbara Wolfe, PhD

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Understanding Variation in the Ability to Detect Early Pregnancy

This study follows a diverse group of 4 million U.S. women who use a reproductive health app to track menstrual cycles, ovulation, and/or pregnancy, including women who are trying to avoid pregnancy. We examine menstrual cycle characteristics to understand variation in when women could possibly learn about pregnancy. This research investigates physiological barriers to learning about pregnancy early on—and in particular, physiological barriers that inhibit peoples’ ability to seek abortion in the presence of early gestation abortion bans.

Principal investigator: Jenna Nobles, PhD; research assistant: Lindsay Cannon, MPH, MSW

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Undue Burden Beyond Texas: An Analysis of Abortion Clinic Closures, Births, and Abortions in Wisconsin

This study estimates the impacts of abortion clinic closures in Wisconsin on access to clinics in terms of distance and congestion, abortion rates, and birth rates.

Principal investigator: Jason Fletcher, PhD; research assistant: Joanna Venator, PhD

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What Factors Shape Black People’s Revealed Abortion Method Preferences?

Racial and ethnic variation exists in abortion method prevalence and preferences but is largely unstudied. This mixed-method research project will identify how reproductive-aged Black people value the abortion method relative to other care attributes and the structural and legal barriers that can shape those preferences. The research team will utilize a national dataset to capture the experience of Midwestern Black people, who experience uniquely high levels of socioeconomic inequality and wide state-level variation in barriers to abortion.

Principal investigator: Tiffany Green, PhD; co-investigators: Adrienne Ghorashi, JD; Jane Seymour, PhD, MPH; Laura Swan, PhD, MSW; Hoa Vu, PhD

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When Pregnancies Become Complicated: Consequences of Dobbs for Patients and Ob-Gyn Physicians in Wisconsin

This project will document and analyze how the post-Dobbs legal landscape impacts ob-gyns’ ability to provide care to patients needing abortion for medical reasons and to deliver routine pregnancy care to patients in abortion-adjacent settings in Wisconsin. In addition, the research team will examine the institutional and system-level factors that have shaped physicians’ experiences and identify opportunities to support physicians’ efforts to deliver high-quality obstetric and abortion care amidst an uncertain and threatening legal landscape.

Principal investigator: Abby Cutler, MD; co-investigators: Eliza Bennett, MD; Jenny Higgins, PhD, MPH; Laura Jacques, MD

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