Border Contraceptive Access Study, El Paso, Texas 2005-2008 (ICPSR 32561)
Version Date: Nov 7, 2011 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Joseph E. Potter, University of Texas-Austin;
Kristine Hopkins, University of Texas-Austin;
Jon Amastae, University of Texas-El Paso;
Daniel Grossman, Ibis Reproductive Health-San Francisco
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR32561.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
Oral contraceptive (OC) users living in El Paso, Texas were interviewed to assess motivations for patronizing a United States clinic or a Mexican pharmacy with over-the-counter (OTC) pills and to determine which women were likely to use the OTC option. The experiences of OC users who obtained their contraception from Mexican pharmacies were compared with those of women who obtained their pills from family planning clinics in El Paso, Texas, where eligible low-income women often pay nothing. 532 clinic users and 514 pharmacy users were surveyed about background characteristics, motivations for choosing their oral contraception source, and satisfaction with this source. For more information, please see the Border Contraceptive Access Study website.
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Funding View help for Funding
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
city
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
Oral contraception (OC) currently requires a prescription. It has been suggested that this requirement should be eliminated. In the debate over removing the prescription requirement, two of the questions that need to be addressed are why women might prefer pharmacy access instead of obtaining pills at clinics, and who would take advantage of the pharmacy option if it were made available. So far, most of the evidence on these points has come from studies of women residing in countries other than the United States or from answers to hypothetical questions addressed to women in this country. To explore these questions, this study was conducted along the United States-Mexico border, where women who live in the United States are afforded an unusual opportunity: crossing the border, they can purchase over-the-counter (OTC) hormonal contraception at pharmacies for a reasonable price -- approximately US$5 per cycle. The motivations and experiences of OC users who obtained their contraception from Mexican pharmacies are compared with those of women who obtained their pills from family planning clinics in El Paso, Texas, where eligible low-income women often pay nothing.
Study Design View help for Study Design
The sample was recruited from El Paso without stratification or primary sampling units.
Sample View help for Sample
1046 El Paso resident OC users aged 18 to 44 years were recruited. Some clinic users were recruited from the major family planning providers in El Paso. However, recruiting pharmacy users at pharmacies in Ciudad Juárez proved to be impractical, so virtually the entire pharmacy user sample and a considerable proportion of the clinic sample were recruited through announcements, flyers, presentations at local community centers, and referrals. Participants resided in 46 different zip codes, 16 of which had more than 20 participants. The sample was not stratified by level of education or socioeconomic status; nevertheless, it did not typically include women who used health insurance or personal funds to obtain prescriptions from private physicians in the United States, then purchased OCs at pharmacies in Mexico.
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Universe View help for Universe
Oral contraceptive users in El Paso, Texas aged 18 to 44 years old.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
Each of the five datasets include verbatim text responses from the participants. Many of these responses are in Spanish.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2011-11-07
Version History View help for Version History
- Potter, Joseph E., Kristine Hopkins, Jon Amastae, and Daniel Grossman. Border Contraceptive Access Study, El Paso, Texas 2005-2008. ICPSR32561-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-11-07. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR32561.v1
2011-11-07 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
This study was originally processed, archived, and disseminated by Data Sharing for Demographic Research (DSDR), a project funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).