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. 2018 Dec;98(6):522-527.
doi: 10.1016/j.contraception.2018.05.012. Epub 2018 Jun 4.

A prospective measure of unintended pregnancy in the United States

Lawrence B Finer  1 , Laura D Lindberg  2 , Sheila Desai  2
Affiliations

A prospective measure of unintended pregnancy in the United States

Lawrence B Finer et al. Contraception. 2018 Dec.

Abstract

Objective: To describe a new measure, the unintended pregnancy risk index (UPRI), which is based primarily on attitudinal and behavioral measures of women's prospective pregnancy desire, and compare it to the unintended pregnancy rate, typically calculated retrospectively.

Study design: We used three rounds of the National Survey of Family Growth to calculate trends in the UPRI and compare it to the retrospective rate. The UPRI estimates the annual risk of becoming unintentionally pregnant on a scale from 0 to 100. It is based on women's prospective pregnancy desire as well as fecundity, sexual activity and contraceptive use patterns.

Results: Among all women aged 15-34, the UPRI ranged from 7.4 in 2002 to 5.7 in 2013. The retrospective unintended pregnancy rate had similar levels and declines for the same overall period, although the UPRI declined earlier than the retrospective rate.

Conclusions: Changes in the use of any contraceptive method, the methods used and the effectiveness of the methods used all contributed to the decline in the UPRI.

Implications: The sufficiency of retrospective measures of pregnancy intention has been challenged, and data availability has constrained needed surveillance of the unintended pregnancy rate. The UPRI offers a new measure that can be calculated with existing national surveillance data or for any population for which data on prospective pregnancy desire, pregnancy risk and contraceptive use are available.

Keywords: Contraception; Prospective measurement; Sexual behavior; Unintended pregnancy.

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Conflict of interest statement

☆☆ Declaration of conflicting interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and publication of this article.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
UPRI and unintended pregnancy (UP) rate, women 15–34 years.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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