Impaired Fecundity Status and Access to Infertility Treatment by Race/Ethnicity

Seung-Eun Song, University of Texas at Austin

This study examines the association between race/ethnicity and the fecundity status among all women who are not surgically sterile and documents the racial differential in the utilization of infertility services among the fecundity-impaired population, based on data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth. With controlling age and motivational factors, minority populations, except other Hispanics, are at greater risk of having fecundity problems which fully take into account by their poor socioeconomic conditions. Further, the models of infertility services utilization reveal that the socioeconomic status plays an important role in race/ethnic differences in infertility services utilization. Therefore, with the growing number of the infertile population and enormous technological advancements in infertility diagnoses and treatments, these race/ethnic cleavages in the prevalence of impaired fecundity and access to infertility care should deserve more attention and be grounds for future research directions and pubic health policies.