ASPIRE Achievements

ASPIRE  team members reached new milestones with 9 publications in 2023, breaking our personal record for number of publications in a single year!

Our fellows analyzed all 50 states and DC for their support for or restrictions of abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, critical race theory, social emotional learning, and sex education. Using national resources such as SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change and GLSEN, they created a score of a state’s support for and ease of access to comprehensive sex education.

The goal of this project was to identify trends in abortion access and sex education across the nation in a post-Dobbs environment. This fact sheet uses the Guttmacher abortion access score to contextualize the PPLM-developed sex education score.

Funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Advance Practice Clinician Sexual and Reproductive Health Residency program will launch in January 2024 as the first-ever SRH Residency Program for Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and Physician Assistants (PAs) at Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. This full-time, 2-year residency program will provide an NP or PA with the opportunity to build their clinical skills and knowledge to provide high-quality SRH care to diverse populations, as well as build a pipeline of experienced APCs in Massachusetts.

In September 2023, the Professional Education team received a federal grant to evaluate the Get Real high school sex ed curriculum. This is a $5M, 5-year evaluation in partnership with Planned Parenthood Greater Ohio, who will be implementing the curriculum in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. After the 5-year evaluation period, PPLM will publish the results and ideally, Get Real high school will be added to the US Health and Human Services’ List of Evidence-based Programs for Teen Pregnancy Prevention. This 5-year effort will increase access to high-quality, comprehensive sex education for young people across the country, contributing to decisions they make around their own health and safety. 

Affiliates of the ASPIRE Center presented at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference in Baltimore, MD, October 2023 on barriers that minors face when trying to access care in the post-Dobbs environment.

“Supporters of sex ed bill say it's time for Massachusetts to act”  - WGBH 

Education, Learning and Engagement Vice President, Jennifer Hart is quoted on her support of the Healthy Youth Act, "Young people across the country witness their rights and access to care and education eroding before their eyes," Hart said. "Passing the Healthy Youth Act is one way we can step up right now to ensure that our youth today, tomorrow and in the future have the access and the means to make the best decisions for their own health and safety."

The creation of the sex ed score by PPLM researchers could help influence lawmakers to pass this bill. The Healthy Youth Act would mandate that if schools offer sex ed, the curriculum must provide a medically accurate, age-appropriate, comprehensive sexual health education.

ASPIRE team members MaryRose Mazzola and Hilary Towle were invited to present a pre-conference workshop at the National Sex Ed Conference in Atlantic City, NJ, in December 2023. Their workshop, titled “Expanding Comprehensive Sex Education in Abortion Ban States,” will discuss the findings of ASPIRE’s national landscape analysis of sex ed access and strategies for expanding sex ed in abortion ban states.

Youri Hwang PhD, APRN, FNP-BC, a Research Advanced Practice Clinician at PPLM, received a competitive Society for Family Planning research grant to study IUD experience and social network at PPLM. This research aims to investigate the impact of social networks on the decision-making process of women who discontinue intrauterine devices (IUDs) due to changes in bleeding and cramping. The study addresses the gap in research by exploring how social context and networks, including family, friends, and social media sources, influence women’s understanding of side effects and their decision-making processes regarding IUD use.