Alternative Estimates of Lifetime Prevalence Of Abortion from Indirect Survey Questioning Methods

By: Sarah K. Cowan, Lawrence Wu, Susanna Makela*, Paula England

Published in: Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 48 (2016)

Abortion is a frequent medical procedure undergone by diverse women in the United States with profound demographic and political implications yet we do not know how many American women alive today have had abortions. We do not know this basic fact because women under-report their abortion histories in surveys. There are a number of well-established techniques to elicit more accurate survey responses to sensitive items. In this comment, we propose that lifetime prevalence estimates for abortion in the United States could be improved through use of these techniques, in particular the double list experiment. We report on a pilot double list experiment we conducted which shows promising results. We also provide unique formulae for determining the appropriate sample sizes needed to detect that the double list experiment has improved accuracy of estimates over those obtained from asking women directly whether they have had an abortion.

Secrets and Misperceptions: The Creation of Self-Fulfilling Illusions

By: Sarah K. Cowan

Published in: Sociological Science 1 (2014)

This study examines who hears what secrets, comparing two similar secrets — one which is highly stigmatized and one which is less so. Using a unique survey representative of American adults and intake forms from a medical clinic, I document marked differences in who hears these secrets. People who are sympathetic to the stigmatizing secret are more likely to hear of it than those who may react negatively. This is a consequence not just of people selectively disclosing their own secrets but selectively sharing others’ as well. As a result, people in the same social network will be exposed to and influenced by different information about those they know and hence experience that network differently. When people effectively exist in networks tailored by others to not offend then the information they hear tends to be that of which they already approve. Were they to hear secrets they disapprove of then their attitudes might change but they are less likely to hear those secrets. As such, the patterns of secret-hearing contribute to a stasis in public opinion.

This research has been covered by The New York Times, Salon, National Public Radio, RH Reality Check , Daily Kos (twice — see the more recent one here), LifeSite, Minnesota Post, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, PSMag and ThinkProgress among other news sources.

This research won the Robert K. Merton Prize for Analytical Sociology from the International Network of Analytical Sociologists, and the Honorable Mention for Best Paper from the Communication, Information Technologies and Media section of the American Sociological Association.

Cohort Abortion Measures for the United States

By: Sarah K. Cowan

Published in: Population and Development Review 39(2), 2013

Demographers interested in abortion in the United States have thus far focused on cross-sectional and synthetic cohort measures, due to data availability. We now have cohorts that have completed their entire reproductive years after the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide. For women who are in the midst of their childbearing years at the conclusion of data collection, I apply the Lee-Carter forecasting technique – its first application in abortion research – to complete their age-specific abortion rates. Using true cohort measures reveals markedly different abortion experiences by cohort. I find stasis in the distribution of abortion by abortion order and the racial composition of abortion incidences. In addition to the substantive findings, cohort measures shift the focus of quantitative abortion research from incidence rates to women’s lives over their reproductive years.