Utilization of family planning services by currently married women 15-44 years of age

The purpose of this report is to present statistics on the use of family planning services by currently married women, based on data collected in Cycle 1 of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), a periodic survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. The percent of currently married women using family planning services and the location of the services are presented according to race and age of the respondent and according to various socioeconomic variables. The NSFG findings were based on personal interviews with about 9800 women aged 15-44 who were either ever-married or single with their own children living in the household. Statistics in this report refer to the 7566 women who were currently married at the time of the interview. The interviews were conducted during the 8-month period centering on September 13, 1973. The following were included among the survey findings: 1) 54% of currently married women aged 15-44 talked at least once with a physician or other trained person about family planning methods in the 5 years preceding the 1973 interview; 2) for currently married women over the age of 20, the percentage with a family planning visit in the last 5 years declined significantly with each successively older age group; 3) there was a significant difference between the percentage of white women and of black women with a visit in the last 5 years - 55% for white women and 46% for black women; 4) among women of Spanish origin, 51% reported at least 1 family planning visit in the last 5 years; 5) the percentage of both white and black women with a family planning visit in the last 5 years did not vary significantly with total family income; 6) the proportion of currently married women with a family planning visit declined with increases in parity; and 7) there was not a significant difference in the percent of women with a family planning visit between Catholic and Protestant women.