ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2018
Identifying National Availability of Abortion Care and Distance From Major US Cities: Systematic Online Search.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 122 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Mystery Client Methodologies to Evaluate Abortion Care and Access: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Long-acting reversible contraception and medication abortion: a national descriptive survey of Australian community pharmacist knowledge, attitudes and practices.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2026Article
- "I don't want to be in the energy of that situation": Embodied experiences with telehealth medication abortion.SSM. Qualitative research in health · 2026Article
- "It Was So Easy in a Situation That's So Hard": Structural Stigma and Telehealth Abortion.Journal of health and social behavior · 2026Article
- A nurse-led model of care to improve access to contraception and abortion in rural general practice: Co-design with consumers and providers.Journal of advanced nursing · 2025Article
- Place Matters: Geographic Distribution of Abortion Fund Services.Health equity · 2025Article
- Spatial Analyses of Crisis Pregnancy Centers and Abortion Facilities in the United States, 2021 (Pre-Dobbs): Cross-Sectional Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2024Article
- Experiences of abortion care in Australia: a qualitative study examining multiple dimensions of access.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2024Article
- Making sense of the economics of abortion in the United States.Perspectives on sexual and reproductive health · 2024Article
- Abortion Training in Family Medicine Residency Programs: A National Survey of Program Directors 5 Months After the Dobbs Decision.Family medicine · 2024Article
- Experiences of delay-causing obstacles and mental health at the time of abortion seeking.Contraception: X · 2024Article
- "Almost like it was really underground": a qualitative study of women's experiences locating services for unintended pregnancy in a rural Australian health system.Sexual and reproductive health matters · 2023Article
- The Role of Telehealth in Promoting Equitable Abortion Access in the United States: Spatial Analysis.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2023Article
- COVID-19 and abortion in the Ohio River Valley: A case study of Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia.Perspectives on sexual and reproductive health · 2023Article
- Distance Traveled for Abortion at a North Carolina Tertiary Care Center Following Restrictive Legislation.North Carolina medical journal · 2023Article
- Abortion Provision by Family Physicians After Integrated Opt-Out Training in Residency.Family medicine · 2023Article
- Kentucky's abortion landscape, 2010 to 2019: an analysis of pre-Lancet regional health. Americas · 2023Article
- Post-Roe emergency medicine: Policy, clinical, training, and individual implications for emergency clinicians.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2022Article
- Geographic disparities in disruptions to abortion care in Louisiana at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.Contraception · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAbortion is a common medical procedure, yet its availability has become more limited across the United States over the past decade. Women who do not know where to go for abortion care may use the internet to find abortion facility information, and there appears to be more online searches for abortion in states with more restrictive abortion laws. While previous studies have examined the distances women must travel to reach an abortion provider, to our knowledge no studies have used a systematic online search to document the geographic locations and services of abortion facilities.
objectiveThe objective of our study was to describe abortion facilities and services available in the United States from the perspective of a potential patient searching online and to identify US cities where people must travel the farthest to obtain abortion care.
methodsIn early 2017, we conducted a systematic online search for abortion facilities in every state and the largest cities in each state. We recorded facility locations, types of abortion services available, and facility gestational limits. We then summarized the frequencies by region and state. If the online information was incomplete or unclear, we called the facility using a mystery shopper method, which simulates the perspective of patients calling for services. We also calculated distance to the closest abortion facility from all US cities with populations of 50,000 or more.
resultsWe identified 780 facilities through our online search, with the fewest in the Midwest and South. Over 30% (236/780, 30.3%) of all facilities advertised the provision of medication abortion services only; this proportion was close to 40% in the Northeast (89/233, 38.2%) and West (104/262, 39.7%). The lowest gestational limit at which services were provided was 12 weeks in Wyoming; the highest was 28 weeks in New Mexico. People in 27 US cities must travel over 100 miles (160 km) to reach an abortion facility; the state with the largest number of such cities is Texas (n=10).
conclusionsOnline searches can provide detailed information about the location of abortion facilities and the types of services they provide. However, these facilities are not evenly distributed geographically, and many large US cities do not have an abortion facility. Long distances can push women to seek abortion in later gestations when care is even more limited.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.