Contraceptive Use among Hispanics on the U.S.-Mexico Border and Hispanics Throughout the United States

Kristine Hopkins, University of Texas at Austin
Sarah McKinnon, University of Texas at Austin
Joseph E. Potter, University of Texas at Austin

This study compared samples drawn from a postpartum survey of Hispanic women at Thomason Hospital in El Paso, Texas and a comparable subsample of the 1995 NSFG. Contraceptive users in the El Paso sample relied primarily on hormonal methods while women in the NSFG sample relied predominantly on condoms and, to a lesser degree, the pill. The proportion of women who used contraception before having their first child in the Thomason sample was two-and-a-half times lower than the proportion of contraceptive users in the NSFG sample. Multivariate results show that, for the Thomason sample, parity and age are strong predictors of both contraceptive use and pill use, but where the woman was born and educated do not predict these two outcomes. We speculate that women who live on the border have greater access to hormonal methods through over-the-counter pharmacy purchases in nearby Mexico, making them the most common methods used.