Sampling strategies among studies of barriers to abortion in the United States: A scoping review of abortion access research

Abstract

Objectives: Understanding barriers to abortion care is particularly important post-Dobbs. However, many abortion access studies recruit from abortion-providing facilities, which overlook individuals who do not present for clinic-based care. To our knowledge, no studies have reviewed research recruitment strategies in the literature or considered how they might affect our knowledge of abortion barriers. We aimed to identify populations included and sampling methods used in studies of abortion barriers in the United States.

Study design: We used a scoping review protocol to search five databases for articles examining US-based individuals' experiences accessing abortion. We included English-language articles published between January 2011 and February 2022. For included studies, we identified the sampling strategy and population recruited.

Results: Our search produced 2763 articles, of which 71 met inclusion criteria. Half of the included papers recruited participants at abortion-providing facilities (n = 35), while the remainder recruited from online sources (n = 14), other health clinics (n = 10), professional organizations (n = 8), abortion funds (n = 2), community organizations (n = 2), key informants (n = 2), and an abortion storytelling project (n = 1). Most articles (n = 61) reported information from people discussing their own abortions; the rest asked nonabortion seekers (e.g., physicians, genetic counselors, attorneys) about barriers to care.

Conclusions: Studies of abortion barriers enroll participants from a range of venues, but the majority recruit people who obtained abortions, and half recruit from abortion clinics.

Implications: As abortion access becomes constrained and criminalized in the post-Roe context, our findings indicate how investigators might recruit study participants from a variety of settings to fully understand the abortion seeking experience.

Keywords: Abortion barriers; Abortion research; Health care access; Research methodology; Review.