Advancing Research on the Consequences of Unintended Childbearing

描述(由申请人提供)：这项拟议的研究的目标是通过详细说明意外生育如何影响怀孕期间和怀孕后的女性和男性的行为，以及婴儿和儿童的健康和福祉，来改善美国家庭的健康和福祉。尽管人们普遍认为意图很重要，但过去的研究结果表明，意外生育与妇女和儿童的负面行为和结果之间存在微弱且往往不一致的关系。然而，在过去的十年里，人们意识到意外怀孕的传统衡量标准的局限性，导致了调查问题，这些问题更好地捕捉到了意向的多个维度，如时机和欲望。随着新的数据来源和新的、更精细的生育意向衡量标准的出现，是时候重新评估怀孕意向、父母行为和婴幼儿健康之间的关系了。该项目建议的工作将通过创新的研究设计和全面的分析方法来解决先前研究的缺陷，从而促进这一领域的知识，从而阐明意外生育对美国家庭的影响。该项目的目标是：目标1：利用新的量化数据来源在生育意向测量方面的最新进展，调查意向状态对父母行为和婴儿和儿童健康结果的影响。确定怀孕意向的特定维度，包括时机和愿望，并在后果分析中测试它们的预测值。评估传统生育意向指标与新的多维指标相比的相对解释价值。扩大对意外生育后果的研究，将父亲包括在内。应用和评估新的统计技术--倾向评分匹配抽样方法--以改进对意外生育及其后果的共同根本原因的控制。目的2：通过深入访谈进行探索性的定性研究，以更好地了解女性和男性对意外生育后果的态度和经历。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of the proposed research is to improve the health and well-being of American families by detailing the ways in which unintended childbearing affects women's and men's behaviors during and after pregnancy, and the health and well-being of infants and children. Despite a general perception that intentions matter, findings from past studies have demonstrated a weak and often inconsistent relationship of unintended childbearing to negative behaviors and outcomes for women and children. However, over the past decade, awareness of limitations of the conventional measure of unintended pregnancy has led to survey questions that better capture multiple dimensions of intention, such as timing and desire. With new data sources and new and more refined measures of childbearing intentions now available, it is time to reassess the relationship between pregnancy intention, parental behaviors and infant and child health. The work proposed in this project will advance knowledge in this area by addressing shortcomings of prior research with an innovative research design and a comprehensive analytical approach that will illuminate the impact of unintended births on American families. The aims of this project are: Aim 1: Investigate the consequences of intention status on parental behaviors and on infant and child health outcomes using recent advances in the measurement of childbearing intentions in new quantitative data sources. Identify specific dimensions of pregnancy intention, including timing and desire, and test their predictive values in analyses of consequences. Assess the relative explanatory value of the conventional measure of childbearing intention compared to the newer multidimensional measures. Expand the study of the consequences of unintended childbearing to include fathers. Apply and evaluate new statistical techniques - propensity scoring matched sample approaches - to improve controls for shared underlying causes of both unintended childbearing and its consequences. Aim 2: Carry out an exploratory qualitative study utilizing in-depth interviews to gain a better understanding of women's and men's attitudes about and experiences with consequences of unintended births.