The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences will provide contraceptives, prenatal health care and reproductive health education to women in 14 rural Arkansas counties “in an effort to prevent unintended pregnancies and to improve access to women’s health care,” the university announced in a news release Thursday.
“By providing contraceptive services in those counties — Ashley, Carroll, Little River, Lee, Madison, Miller, Ouachita, Phillips, Newton, Sebastian, Sevier, St. Francis, Union and Washington — UAMS aims to eliminate barriers women may currently experience when trying to receive contraception, such as transportation, costs and language and cultural barriers,” the news release states.
The project will be funded by a $431,000 grant from an anonymous donor, said David Wise, spokesperson for the UAMS Northwest Regional Campus in Fayetteville.
The UAMS Institute for Community Health Innovation will employ mobile health units to bring reproductive care and education to areas of the state where those resources are limited, the news release states. Mobile health units are vehicles with the equipment to provide health care services, including screenings and vaccinations; UAMS used these tools for COVID-19 testing and vaccinations during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Women living in rural communities face a lot of challenges when trying to receive the contraceptive method of their choice,” Kelly Conroy, senior director of Community Programs at the UAMS Institute for Community Health Innovation, said in the news release. “Their local clinics may not offer a full range of contraception methods, or they may not be available on-site.”
Arkansas’ reproductive health care challenges continue, study shows
UAMS hosted a panel in February in which medical professionals agreed that the maternal health landscape in Arkansas needs improvement. Arkansas has the nation’s highest maternal mortality rate and the third highest infant mortality rate, according to the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement.
Arkansas received an overall ranking of 47 and ranked last in maternity care providers per 100,000 women ages 15 to 44 with a rate of 52.1, according to the 2024 State Scorecard on Women’s Health and Reproductive Care, published this week. The national average is 78.9 providers per 100,000 women.
Only 35 hospitals in Arkansas have labor and delivery units, and four units have closed since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Additionally, more than 60% of Arkansas women don’t return to their healthcare provider for their six-week postpartum visit, the UAMS news release states.
Arkansas also had almost double the national rate of teenage pregnancy in 2022, and the vast majority of teen pregnancies were unplanned due to a lack of adequate sex education and access to reliable contraception, according to Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.
Both teenagers and adults will have access to UAMS’ rural contraceptive and reproductive healthcare initiative, Wise said.
AACF Executive Director Keesa Smith-Brantley praised the initiative in a statement Thursday.
“Our state continues to have one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancies, which we know cause significant financial strain on families,” Smith-Brantley said. “In addition, with so many Arkansas counties having limited access to gynecological services, forward-thinking steps like this will help provide women with both the reproductive health education and access to care critically needed for women to make their best plans for the future.”
The mobile health unit program encourages people to sign up before visiting, “mostly to ensure we have their contraceptive of choice available for their visit,” but will also see people without appointments depending on availability, Wise said.
The mobile health units will have a variety of birth control options, including pills and intrauterine devices (IUDs), the latter of which is also referred to as long-acting reversible contraception (LARC).
Additionally, UAMS also will train nearly 50 of its family medicine residents on LARC insertion and “how to initiate conversations with their patients regarding their reproductive health goals,” the news release states.
The Arkansas Legislature passed a law in 2023 that requires Medicaid to cover LARC for postpartum mothers. UAMS has been able to cover LARC via grant funding since 2021, Wise said.
Another 2023 bill would have extended postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months after birth, but it did not advance.
Arkansas is the only state with no plans to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Secretary of Human Services Kristi Putnam said in March that this expansion would be “redundant” and “duplicative” since the state has other insurance coverage options for postpartum low-income Arkansans.
Sanders signed an executive order creating a committee, which includes some cabinet officials, that will formulate a “comprehensive statewide strategic health plan” aimed at connecting more Arkansas women with healthcare providers before, during and after pregnancy, among other things.
Five counties with high rates of pregnant Arkansans receiving no maternal health care at all — Phillips, Crittenden, Scott, Garland and Polk — will be the focus of a state-run pilot program, created by Sanders’ executive order, to increase access to maternal health care and coverage.
Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on Facebook and X.
