UAMS provides contraceptive services, education in 14 rural counties

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) will provide contraceptive services and reproductive health education to women in rural Arkansas counties in an effort to prevent unintended pregnancies and improve access to women’s healthcare, the school announced Thursday (July 18).

Through a private philanthropic grant awarded to the UAMS Institute for Community Health Innovation, UAMS will deploy mobile health units – vehicles equipped to provide services such as health screenings, prenatal care services and vaccinations – to provide contraceptives and education to women living in 14 counties.

Those counties include: Ashley, Carroll, Little River, Lee, Madison, Miller, Ouachita, Phillips, Newton, Sebastian, Sevier, St. Francis, Union and Washington. UAMS said it is aiming to eliminate barriers women may currently experience when trying to receive contraception, such as transportation, costs, and language and cultural barriers.

“Women living in rural communities face a lot of challenges when trying to receive the contraceptive method of their choice,” said Kelly Conroy, senior director of community programs at the UAMS Institute for Community Health Innovation. “Their local clinics may not offer a full range of contraception methods, or they may not be available on-site. By bringing our mobile health units to those communities and working alongside their clinics and their local organizations, we want to help women navigate their reproductive health safely and effectively.”

The institute will work with organizations and clinics in the 14 counties to help schedule appointments for women ahead of the mobile unit’s visit.

“Partnering with community-based organizations is critical to this project’s success,” Conroy said. “Those partners who have established trust in their communities will help drive this project and will help move Arkansas toward a better and healthier state for all women.”

The mobile health units will also be equipped to provide complementary services such as reproductive health education and testing for sexually transmitted infections. Clients will be connected with trained community health workers who can help them access more resources and connect to other healthcare services.

As part of the project, UAMS also will train nearly 50 UAMS family medicine residents to assist with the program.

Arkansas has ranked as one of the worst states in America for maternal mortality. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported last year that in 2019, about 35% of all pregnancies in the U.S. were unintended. In 2022, the Arkansas Department of Health said that 54% of women in Arkansas reported that they were not trying to get pregnant when they did.