Research: family planning is cost effective

DES MOINES – New research released today indicates money invested in family planning services has a significant benefit.

A cost-benefit analysis conducted by researchers at the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa found that each tax dollar invested in programs and clinics that help women prevent unintended pregnancies saves taxpayers an average of $3.78 in the first year by averting public expenditures for health care, child care and welfare.

Dr. Mary Losch of UNI's Center for Social and Behavioral Research said those savings grow to $15.12 per taxpayer dollar invested in family planning services over a five-year period. Services to teenagers in the 14-19 age range can save more than $17 over five years for every family-planning dollar invested, she added.

Christie Vilsack, executive director of the nonprofit Iowa Initiative to Reduce Unintended Pregnancies – which requested the research – the findings are significant because about half of the 52,000 Iowa women who will become pregnant this year will do so unintentionally.

“Helping low-income or uninsured women to avoid unintended pregnancy can save taxpayers thousands of dollars in health-care costs, food assistance and child-care assistance for women, infants and children,” Vilsack said.

“The economic impact is even greater when you consider that many women attain higher levels of education and better paying jobs when they are able to plan their pregnancies,” she added.

More than 170,000 Iowa women and teen-aged girls qualify for publicly funded contraceptive services, Vilsack noted, but only 41 percent are served by family planning clinics.

Iowa currently ranks 48

^th

nationally in making family planning services available and 39

^th

for providing funding for such services, she said. Vilsack pointed to a 2008 study that found that, on average in one year in Iowa, publicly funded family planning clinic services avert 20,000 unintended pregnancies and 8,000 abortions – saving about $88 million in annual Medicaid costs.