No surprises here
Indiana scores poorly on access to family planning
State ranks 49th in a national study
By Shari Rudavsky - shari.rudavsky@indystar.com
Indiana ranks a dismal 49th among states and the District of Columbia when it comes to efforts to prevent unintended pregnancies, a report last week by the Guttmacher Institute found.
A lack of policies that increase women's access to contraception and a scarcity of clinics for women in need of such services combined to make Indiana rank worse than any state other than North Dakota and Nebraska.
California, which requires all insurers to cover birth control and all schools to teach about contraceptive options, topped the rankings of the report by the institute, a New York-based nonprofit that conducts research on reproductive issues.
Alaska, South Carolina and Alabama followed, dispelling the common notion that more conservative states are less likely to score well in such rankings, said Cynthia Dailard, lead author of the report and a senior policy analyst at Guttmacher.
"One of the messages we take away from that is that family planning or helping women avoid unintended pregnancy is not just a blue-state issue," she said.
Overall, however, nearly half of the 6 million pregnancies in the United States each year are unintended. Of these, about 1.3 million end in abortion.
That Indiana did not do well when it comes to preventing such pregnancies does not surprise Michael McKillip, director of public policy and legislative affairs of Planned Parenthood of Indiana.
But, he said, he did not expect the state's performance to be quite so bad.
"We were surprised that Indiana ranked as poorly as we did. Nearly dead last is pretty bad," he said. "What we would love to see is that all pregnancies are planned, wanted and loved."
The repercussions of failing to prevent unwanted pregnancies are vast, experts say. Unintended pregnancies can lead to missed educational opportunities and employment problems, McKillip said.
Sage family planning can help decrease infant mortality, and spacing children will improve health of both mother and child, said Gayla Winston, president of the Indiana Family Health Council, a nonprofit organization here that administers federal funds for family planning services.
"It truly is a public health issue," Winston said. "Our problem in Indiana is, we just don't have any money to do it. We have the need, but we don't have the resources."
In Indiana, only 49 percent of counties have clinics that provide contraceptive services for free or at a reduced charge, the report found.
Nationwide, about 85 percent of counties have such a clinic.
Indiana also lags behind other states when it comes to coverage for family planning services for women on Medicaid.
Although the state legislature passed a measure last year extending such coverage to women for two years after the birth of a child, the measure has yet to be implemented.
State Medicaid employees are now in the process of writing a waiver to put the new rule into the state Medicaid plan, said officials at the Indiana State Department of Health.
Not all of the news from the study, however, was bad.
Indiana ranked seventh in the amount of progress it made over time.
And state health department officials said efforts are under way to address unintended pregnancy. The Indiana Perinatal Network is convening an expert panel on the issue.
Still, the state has a way to go before it catches up to the other states, Dailard said.
State ranks 49th in a national study
By Shari Rudavsky - shari.rudavsky@indystar.com
Indiana ranks a dismal 49th among states and the District of Columbia when it comes to efforts to prevent unintended pregnancies, a report last week by the Guttmacher Institute found.
A lack of policies that increase women's access to contraception and a scarcity of clinics for women in need of such services combined to make Indiana rank worse than any state other than North Dakota and Nebraska.
California, which requires all insurers to cover birth control and all schools to teach about contraceptive options, topped the rankings of the report by the institute, a New York-based nonprofit that conducts research on reproductive issues.
Alaska, South Carolina and Alabama followed, dispelling the common notion that more conservative states are less likely to score well in such rankings, said Cynthia Dailard, lead author of the report and a senior policy analyst at Guttmacher.
"One of the messages we take away from that is that family planning or helping women avoid unintended pregnancy is not just a blue-state issue," she said.
Overall, however, nearly half of the 6 million pregnancies in the United States each year are unintended. Of these, about 1.3 million end in abortion.
That Indiana did not do well when it comes to preventing such pregnancies does not surprise Michael McKillip, director of public policy and legislative affairs of Planned Parenthood of Indiana.
But, he said, he did not expect the state's performance to be quite so bad.
"We were surprised that Indiana ranked as poorly as we did. Nearly dead last is pretty bad," he said. "What we would love to see is that all pregnancies are planned, wanted and loved."
The repercussions of failing to prevent unwanted pregnancies are vast, experts say. Unintended pregnancies can lead to missed educational opportunities and employment problems, McKillip said.
Sage family planning can help decrease infant mortality, and spacing children will improve health of both mother and child, said Gayla Winston, president of the Indiana Family Health Council, a nonprofit organization here that administers federal funds for family planning services.
"It truly is a public health issue," Winston said. "Our problem in Indiana is, we just don't have any money to do it. We have the need, but we don't have the resources."
In Indiana, only 49 percent of counties have clinics that provide contraceptive services for free or at a reduced charge, the report found.
Nationwide, about 85 percent of counties have such a clinic.
Indiana also lags behind other states when it comes to coverage for family planning services for women on Medicaid.
Although the state legislature passed a measure last year extending such coverage to women for two years after the birth of a child, the measure has yet to be implemented.
State Medicaid employees are now in the process of writing a waiver to put the new rule into the state Medicaid plan, said officials at the Indiana State Department of Health.
Not all of the news from the study, however, was bad.
Indiana ranked seventh in the amount of progress it made over time.
And state health department officials said efforts are under way to address unintended pregnancy. The Indiana Perinatal Network is convening an expert panel on the issue.
Still, the state has a way to go before it catches up to the other states, Dailard said.