Ipas conducts policy- and program-relevant research on abortion in collaboration with diverse global, regional, national and local partners. We generate new knowledge for the larger reproductive health and rights community. We also focus on targeted research to understand more about women’s needs and wants regarding reproductive health care and how they make decisions about contraception and abortion.
Our priorities
- Building national-level evidence for turning policy into practice—with the aim of increasing access to high-quality abortion care around the world
- Evaluating the effectiveness and impact of sexual and reproductive health and rights programs
- Testing new approaches to build programmatic evidence
- Generating new evidence for important unanswered questions in the sexual and reproductive health and rights arena
- Using methods that raise up the voices and stories of people closest to our work
Why do this research?
- Formative and intervention research identifies existing gaps and generates new knowledge for the larger reproductive health and rights community.
- Study findings inform the development of improved national policies and health system practices.
- Ipas’s growing body of evidence enables us to evaluate and improve our programmatic effectiveness.
Our contributions to the global evidence base on abortion include groundbreaking national abortion incidence and morbidity studies, operations research on measures to improve the cost-effectiveness and quality of abortion services, and evaluation of community-based interventions. Ipas also works to strengthen service-delivery monitoring and evaluation within national health systems to help improve programs and measure impact.
Abortion Care Quality (ACQ) Tool
The first ever global standard for measuring the quality of abortion services in low- and middle-income countries is here.Â
Ipas 2024 research publications: Evidence in action for abortion access
Ipas’s 2024 research provides crucial evidence on abortion access, care quality, and stigma reduction. With 26 studies in 15 peer-reviewed journals across nine countries, these findings inform policy, improve health services, and advance reproductive justice worldwide.
Publications in 2024
Selected current research
Abortion care in humanitarian settings
Self-managed abortion: barriers and opportunities
Ipas contact:Â Tamara Fetters
Location:Â Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya and Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement, Uganda
Abortion care in humanitarian settings
The magnitude and severity of abortion-related complications and factors associated with severe and near miss events in three African humanitarian settings
Ipas contact:Â Tamara Fetters
Location:Â Jahun, Nigeria and Bangui, Central African Republic
Abortion self care
A prospective, comparative study of clinical outcomes following clinic-based versus self-use of medical abortion using mifepristone with misoprostol
Ipas contacts:Â Kristen ShellenbergÂ
Location:Â Cambodia, Nigeria, Ghana
Abortion service quality
Abortion Service Quality (ASQ) Initiative
Ipas contact: Bill Powell
Location:Â Nigeria, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Argentina
Postabortion contraception
Accelerating contraceptive uptake through post-pregnancy care models
Ipas contact: Kristen Shellenberg
Location:Â Pakistan, India and Kenya
Beyond the individual: Research shows abortion access has widespread benefits
Our research shows that the ability to leave unhealthy relationships proves to be a critical benefit for those able to choose abortion. Findings have shown that abortion access can help a woman escape domestic violence in the United Kingdom, avoid becoming a second wife in Ghana, and leave abusive partners in Colombia and Indonesia.