Advancing Research on the Consequences of Unintended Childbearing

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议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，人们意识到传统的意外怀孕测量方法的局限性，导致调查问题更好地捕捉了意图的多个维度，如时间和欲望。现在有了新的数据来源和新的、更精确的生育意愿衡量标准，现在是重新评估怀孕意愿、父母行为和婴幼儿健康之间关系的时候了。本项目提出的工作将通过创新的研究设计和全面的分析方法解决先前研究的不足，从而推进这一领域的知识，从而阐明意外生育对美国家庭的影响。该项目的目的是：目标1：利用在新的定量数据来源中测量生育意图的最新进展，调查意向状况对父母行为和婴儿和儿童健康结果的影响。确定怀孕意向的具体维度，包括时间和愿望，并在分析后果时测试其预测价值。与较新的多维度测量相比，评估传统的生育意愿测量的相对解释价值。扩大对意外生育后果的研究，把父亲也包括进来。应用和评估新的统计技术——倾向评分匹配样本方法——以改善对意外生育及其后果的共同潜在原因的控制。目标2：开展一项探索性质的研究，利用深度访谈来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.