Renita Washburn, PhD Student, University of Central Florida
Dr. Mary Jean Amon, Assistant Professor, University of Central Florida
This research examines impacts to United States fertility rates as a function of state legislative restrictions on the use of public resources (e.g., Medicaid funds) for abortions. Data from LawAtlas and the Centers for Disease Control's WONDER databases were used to model 2021 fertility rates based on maternal age group and abortion legislation. A two-way ANOVA of rank transformed fertility rates was used to identify impacts of legislative restriction across six maternal age groups. Latent class analysis was used to identify patterns in state abortion restrictions composition and their relationship with fertility rates based on age.
It was revealed that the impact of abortion restrictions targeting public resources on fertility rates varied based on maternal age; for example, women ages 15-29 had lower fertility rates when there were no restrictions. Additionally, legislative restrictions on multiple categories of public resources were associated with higher state fertility rates. The poster includes visualization of summary statistics and findings with maps and charts. The poster demonstrates a method for addressing unbalanced data using transformation, as well as the use of latent class analysis with binary categorical variables.
