Temporal Changes in Counseling for and Use of Emergency Contraception

Our objective was to evaluate changes in the prevalence of emergency contraception counseling and use after policy changes in the United States between 2011 and 2019. This was a serial cross-sectional study using the National Survey of Family Growth data set from two survey windows: 2011-2013 (4,177 women) and 2017-2019 (4,477 women). The incidence of emergency contraception counseling in the prior year did not differ between the 2011-2013 and 2017-2019 survey windows (3.3% vs 2.5%; adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.73, 95% CI 0.51-1.05). There was a significant increase in ever use of emergency contraception between the 2011-2013 and 2017-2019 survey windows (19.0% vs 26.1%; aOR 1.44, 95% CI 1.22-1.72). This suggests that changes facilitating access to care may have a larger effect on emergency contraception access and uptake than health care professional counseling.