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Review
. 2024 Jul 16:10:100248.
doi: 10.1016/j.jmh.2024.100248. eCollection 2024.

Abortion care access and experience among U.S. immigrants: A systematic review

Lauren J Shiman  1 , Sarah Pickering  1 , Diana Romero  1   2 , Heidi E Jones  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Abortion care access and experience among U.S. immigrants: A systematic review

Lauren J Shiman et al. J Migr Health. .

Abstract

Purpose: United States (US) immigrant populations face unique barriers to accessing health care, including reproductive health care. Abortion access and experiences among immigrant populations in the US are not well understood.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review to synthesize existing literature about US immigrant populations' access to and use of abortion services. Eight studies met the eligibility criteria, which included being published in English and presenting at least one finding relevant to US immigrant populations' access to or experience utilizing abortion; key findings were identified using content analysis.

Results: We present results organized within three main categories: (1) overall rates of abortion among immigrant versus US-born individuals, (2) characteristics of US immigrants who receive abortion services, and (3) barriers to abortion access for US immigrant populations, which included concepts pertaining to discrimination, challenges navigating the healthcare systems, and lack of knowledge about legal rights.

Conclusion: Study findings illustrate three categories of results relevant to immigrant experiences accessing abortion care in the US, including revealing barriers to abortion services rooted in lack of knowledge of US institutional systems and mistreatment in clinical and legal settings due to race or immigration status. Further research is needed to better understand nuances in experiences among immigrant subpopulations, experiences of US immigrants who speak a language other than English or Spanish, and use of self-managed abortions or abortions in informal settings among US immigrants.

Keywords: Abortion; Health care access; Immigrant; Reproductive health.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Systematic literature search for published articles on abortion and U.S. immigrant populations.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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