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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Reduce the proportion of unintended pregnancies — FP‑01 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About the National Data  |  Methodology  |  History

About the National Data

Data

Data Sources:  National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), CDC/NCHS; National Vital Statistics System - Natality (NVSS-N), CDC/NCHS; Surveillance Data for Abortion, CDC/NCCDPHP; Guttmacher Institute Abortion Provider Census (APC), Guttmacher Institute; Guttmacher Institute Abortion Patient Survey (APS), Guttmacher Institute

Baseline: 43.0 percent of pregnancies among women aged 15 to 44 years were unintended in 2013

Target: 36.5 percent

Numerator
Number of unintended pregnancies among women aged 15 to 44 years.
Denominator
Number of pregnancies (live births plus abortions and fetal losses) among women aged 15 to 44 years.
Target-setting method
Projection
Target-setting method details
Linear trend fitted using ordinary least squares and a projection at the 50 percent prediction interval.
1
Target-setting method justification
Trend data were evaluated for this objective. Using historical data points, a trend line was fitted using ordinary least squares and the trend was projected into the next decade. This method was used because three or more comparable data points were available, the projected value was within the range of possible values, and a projection at the 50 percent prediction interval was selected because no additional information could be used to assess the trend link so the target was based on the projection.

Methodology

Questions used to obtain the national baseline data

(For additional information, please visit the data source pages linked above.)

To arrive at the total number of pregnancies, the number of U.S. births, miscarriages, and abortions are estimated from several sources.

The numbers of birth are obtained from NCHS, which tabulates data from birth certificates to obtain birth counts at the national level.

To obtain the number of miscarriages in a given year, the National Survey of Family Growth is used to calculate the ratio of miscarriages to births that were reported and that ratio is multiplied by the actual number of U.S. births to obtain the estimated number of miscarriages.

The total number of abortions, including both surgical and medication abortions, is obtained from Guttmacher's Abortion Provider Census and CDC's Abortion Surveillance Data.

The proportion of pregnancies that were unintended was estimated from similar sets of questions regarding women's desire to become pregnant right before each reported conception from the NSFG (for live births and miscarriages) and the Abortion Patient Survey (for abortions).

Pregnancies among women who reported not wanting to become pregnant at the time of conception, but wanting to become pregnant sometime in the future, were considered to be "mistimed." Pregnancies among women who reported not wanting to become pregnant at the time of conception nor anytime in the future were considered to be "unwanted." Together, mistimed and unwanted pregnancies were considered to be "unintended." Pregnancies among women who reported that the conception occurred at the right time or later than the woman had wanted were considered to be "intended." A small fraction of women reported indifference about the timing of their pregnancies, and we grouped those pregnancies with those considered to be intended.

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Modified, which includes core objectives that are continuing from Healthy People 2020 but underwent a change in measurement.
Changes between HP2020 and HP2030
This objective differs from Healthy People 2020 objective FP-1 in that objective FP-1 tracked the proportion of pregnancies that are intended while this objective tracks the proportion of pregnancies that are unintended.

1. Because Healthy People 2030 objectives have a desired direction (e.g., increase or decrease), the confidence level of a one-sided prediction interval can be used as an indication of how likely a target will be to achieve based on the historical data and fitted trend.