Researcher uses Reddit data to map post-Roe abortion access barriers
Betsy Pleasants, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Women’s Health Research, began studying how the Covid‑19 pandemic affected abortion services while a graduate student at UC Berkeley.
When a leaked draft indicated the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, Pleasants and her advisors redirected the project to monitor emerging barriers to abortion access in real time.
She turned to Reddit, analyzing public conversations to create a map of lived experiences and to assess how online resources connect people with evidence‑based health information.
The work aims to inform strategies for expanding access to abortion and other reproductive health care in an environment of rapidly changing state restrictions.
This writeup was produced by pharmadog from original reporting by STAT.
Original headline: “The fall of Roe dramatically changed abortion access. This researcher used Reddit to capture how”
read at STAT ↗
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