Go to Content Go to Navigation Go to Navigation Go to Site Search Homepage

There are many ways to serve the Planned Parenthood mission of quality and affordable reproductive and sexual health care for all. Straightforwardly, it is our health center providers who are ensuring access to care in our physical locations. Yet, the mission is also served by working to ensure we elect reproductive health champions, and through sex education to promote medically accurate, age-appropriate information. 
 
However, another key area of work is our research department.  
 
Many Planned Parenthood affiliates participate in clinical research with the ultimate goal of expanding reproductive health care access and improving the services available to all patients.  
 
Planned Parenthood’s research activities can often play a major part in getting FDA approval for new or expanded use of medications, devices, or diagnostic technologies. 
 
“With these clinical research studies, we do the work that is mission-centered, and we truly push for increased access and better patient care,” said Erin Berry, Washington Medical Director and Director of Clinical Research at Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky. 

“We are involved in a lot of different types of research across our six states,” explained Kelly Kajumulo, Clinical Research Manager at PPGNHAIK. “While most of our active research studies involve clinical services, we also provide regulatory support to other departments outside of clinical services when they conduct research.”    
 
Kajumulo said, “The most visible research projects that we do are in partnerships with industry sponsors, like pharmaceutical companies, and researchers at academic institutions and involve offering patients the opportunity to participate in a research study while at one of our health centers. The majority of these patient enrollment studies take place at our Western Washington health centers.” 
 
Berry added that the most visible research projects are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to clinical research at Planned Parenthood. “We conduct a large variety of studies that allows us to work with numerous different kinds of partners, including big pharmaceutical companies, but also with academic partners, foundations, graduate students, fellowships and medical students.” 
 
Kajumulo noted that right now, PPGNHAIK is actively enrolling patients in three different research studies related to birth control and STI prevention, two in western Washington, and one virtual study that is being offered to patients in all six states.  
 
More information about those studies can be found at the Clinical Research section of the affiliate web page at this link.  
 
Planned Parenthood’s unique relationship with its patients can offer an advantage in the studies, Kajumulo explained. 
 
“Researchers are eager to partner with us because of the quality of our relationship with our patients. Many of our research partners are used to working with larger research-focused institutions. What we have is a really great connection with our patients and our patients trust us, so most are enthusiastic about participating in a research opportunity, especially one that offers a stipend to patients for their participation,” she said.  
 
All research conducted at PPGNHAIK, or any Planned Parenthood affiliate, must undergo a rigorous registration and review process via Planned Parenthood Federation of America to ensure that all research across the federation adheres to the PPFA Research Standards & Guidelines. 
 
Suma Coorg, Clinical Research Assistant at PPGNHAIK, elaborated, “In order to ensure that we adhere to the highest ethical standards, any research study conducted by or at a Planned Parenthood affiliate is registered with the PPFA Research and Evaluation Department.”    
 
Berry noted that PPGNHAIK is extremely engaged in clinical research. “We have two team members, myself and Kelly [Kajumulo] on PPFA’s Clinical Research Network’s Advisory Council, and [PPGNHAIK is] commonly chosen as one of a few sites for PPFA’s lead research projects.” 
 
Kajumulo also explained that PPFA keeps a master record of every research project at every affiliate, no matter how small: “Even a one-on-one study with a graduate student would be recorded.”  
 
This allows PPFA to respond to inquiries from the public or media and be confident that all research across the affiliate is compliant with federal regulations and PPFA Standards. 
 
PPFA approves roughly 70 research projects across all affiliates per year.  
 
“Because we are plugged into PPFA’s greater resources and all the research that we and other affiliates have done, we are not only able to offer our patients the most up-to-date, effective health care, but we are also able to trailblaze new paths of access for patients,” Berry summarized. 
 
To support important clinical research at your local Planned Parenthood affiliate, please donate here.

Tags: research, Health_care_access

Explore more on

We and our third partners use cookies and other tools to collect, store, monitor, and analyze information about your interaction with our site to improve performance, analyze your use of our sites and assist in our marketing efforts. You may opt out of the use of these cookies and other tools at any time by visiting Cookie Settings. By clicking “Allow All Cookies” you consent to our collection and use of such data, and our Terms of Use. For more information, see our Privacy Notice.

Cookie Settings

We, and our third-party partners, use cookies, pixels, and other tracking technologies to collect, store, monitor, and process certain information about you when you access and use our services, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences, or your device. We use that information to make the site work, analyze performance and traffic on our website, to provide a more personalized web experience, and assist in our marketing efforts. We also share information with our social media, advertising, and analytics partners. You can change your default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of required cookies when utilizing our site; this includes necessary cookies that help our site to function (such as remembering your cookie preference settings). For more information, please see our Privacy Notice.

Marketing

On

We use online advertising to promote our mission and help constituents find our services. Marketing pixels help us measure the success of our campaigns.

User Feedback and Session Replay

On

We use qualitative data from LogRocket, UserZoom, Hotjar and AB Tasty to learn about your user experience and improve our products and services. LogRocket allows us to view session replays.