ArticlePublic health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974)
Effect of Changes in Response Options on Reported Pregnancy Intentions: A Natural Experiment in the United States.
Article in Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974). The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A systematic review of non-binary measures of pregnancy perceptions, attitudes and reactions, and associated outcomes.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Pooled it
- What Happened in Delaware Following a Statewide Contraceptive Initiative?The Milbank quarterly · 2025Article
- Racial/Ethnic Differences in Relationships Between Pregnancy Intentions and Maternal Outcomes.Maternal and child health journal · 2024Article
- Reproductive autonomy and the experience of later-than-desired pregnancy: results from a cross-sectional survey of reproductive-aged women in Uganda.Reproductive health · 2024Article
- Sequencing of Births by Wantedness: Implications for Changes in Mid-Life Health Among Aging NLSY79 Women.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2023Article
- Association of pregnancy attitudes and intentions with sexual activity and psychiatric symptoms in justice-involved youth.Children and youth services review · 2022Article
- Pregnancy Intention: Associations with Maternal Behaviors and Experiences During and After Pregnancy.Journal of women's health (2002) · 2021Article
- Assessing Short-Term Fertility Intentions and Their Realisation Using the Generations and Gender Survey: Pitfalls and Challenges.European journal of population = Revue europeenne de demographie · 2021Article
- Estimating the incidence of unintended births and pregnancies at the sub-state level to inform program design.PloS one · 2020Article
- On the Stability of Reported Pregnancy Intentions from Pregnancy to 1 Year Postnatally: Impact of Choice of Measure, Timing of Assessment, Women's Characteristics and Outcome of Pregnancy.Maternal and child health journal · 2019Article
- Prospective Attitude about the Importance of Planning Pregnancies Is Associated with Retrospective Attitude toward a Specific Pregnancy.Socius : sociological research for a dynamic worldArticle
- Birth-Intention Time Horizon as a Predictor of Contraceptive Method Effectiveness.Women's health issues : official publication of the Jacobs Institute of Women's HealthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThe Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in collaboration with state health departments, is the largest state-level surveillance system that includes a question on the intention status of pregnancies leading to live birth. In 2012, the question was changed to include an additional response option describing uncertainty before the pregnancy about the desire for pregnancy. This analysis investigated how this additional response option affected women's responses.
methodsWe used the change in the pregnancy intention question in 2012 as a natural experiment, taking advantage of relatively stable distributions of pregnancy intentions during short periods of time in states. Using PRAMS data from 2009-2014 (N = 222 781), we used a regression discontinuity-in-time design to test for differences in the proportion of women choosing each response option in the periods before and after the question change.
resultsDuring 2012-2014, 13%-15% of women chose the new response option, "I wasn't sure what I wanted." The addition of the new response option substantially affected distributions of pregnancy intentions, drawing responses away from all answer choices except "I wanted to be pregnant then." Effects were not uniform across age, parity, or race/ethnicity or across states.
conclusionsThese effects could influence estimated levels and trends of the proportion of births that are characterized as intended, mistimed, or unwanted, as well as estimates of differences between demographic groups. These findings will help to inform new strategies for measuring pregnancy and childbearing desires among women.
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