Abortion underreporting in Add Health: Findings and implications

Citation

Tierney, Katherine I. (2019). Abortion underreporting in Add Health: Findings and implications. Population Research and Policy Review. vol. 38 (3) pp. 417-428

Abstract

Well-documented, large-scale abortion underreporting on U.S. surveys raises questions about the use of abortion self-reports for statistical inference. This paper is the first to evaluate the completeness of the abortion data in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). Comparisons of Add Health’s estimated abortion rates to external sources show that the Add Health data capture 35% of expected abortions. Thus, Add Health performed no better than other surveys in collecting abortion data. Further, no differences in underreporting by race/ethnicity or age at abortion were found. We suggest that the current U.S. social environment generates high levels of abortion stigma, which yields abortion underreporting. We conclude that due to underreporting, survey self-reports of abortion need to be evaluated, contextualized, and used with caution.

URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-019-09511-8

Reference Type

Journal Article

Journal Title

Population Research and Policy Review

Author(s)

Tierney, Katherine I.

Year Published

2019

Volume Number

38

Issue Number

3

Pages

417-428

Edition

January 21, 2019

ISSN/ISBN

1573-7829

DOI

10.1007/s11113-019-09511-8

Reference ID

7023