Publicly Funded Family Planning Services in the United States: Quick Stats and Facts
Key Resources
Quick Stats
• There are 17.4 million American women aged 13–44 in need of publicly funded contraceptive services and supplies. [1]
• One in four women who obtained contraceptive services in the United States in 2006—including 50% of poor women who did so—received care at publicly funded family planning centers. [2,3]
• In 2006, publicly funded family planning services helped women avoid 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, which would likely have resulted in about 860,000 unintended births and 810,000 abortions. [1]
• Every $1 invested in publicly funded family planning services saves $3.74 in Medicaid costs associated with unplanned births by enabling women to obtain the contraceptive services they want. [1]
• The services provided at publicly funded clinics resulted in an estimated net savings to the federal and state governments of $5.1 billion in 2008; services provided at Title X–supported clinics accounted for $3.4 billion of that total. [1]
• In the absence of publicly funded family planning, levels of unintended pregnancy and abortion would be nearly two-thirds higher among women overall and teens, and close to twice as high among poor women. [4]
• Family planning centers offer a broad range of contraceptive services, most often including oral contraceptives, the injectable and the male condom. [4]
REFERENCES
1. Guttmacher Institute, Contraceptive Needs and Services, 2008 Update, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2010, <http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/win/contraceptive-needs-2008.pdf>, accessed December 5, 2011.
2. Frost JJ, U.S. women’s reliance on publicly funded family planning clinics as their usual source of medical care, paper presented at the 2008 Research Conference on the National Survey of Family Growth, Hyattsville, MD, Oct. 16–17, 2008.
3. Guttmacher Institute tabulations of data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth.
4. Gold RB, Sonfield A, Richards CL and Frost JJ, Next Steps for America’s Family Planning Program: Leveraging the Potential of Medicaid and Title X in an Evolving Health Care System , <http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/NextSteps.pdf>, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2009.
Fact Sheets and Other Resources
Facts on Publicly Funded Contraceptive Services in the United States
State Facts About Title X and Family Planning
State Policies in Brief: State Family Planning Funding Restrictions
State Policies in Brief: Medicaid Family Planning Eligibility Expansions
Report: Medicaid Family Planning Expansions: Lessons Learned and Implications for the Future
RSS