Abortion Underreporting among Young Australian Women: Findings from a Linked Analysis

Mridula Shankar, The University of Melbourne
Nick Egan, University of Newcastle
Angela Taft, La Trobe University
Wendy Norman, University of British Columbia
Melissa Harris, University of Newcastle
Kirsten Black, University of Sydney
Deborah Bateson, University of Sydney
Leesa Hooker, La Trobe University
Kristina Edvardsson , La Trobe University

Researchers regularly rely on surveys-based measures to generate abortion data, though the threat of under-report undermining data quality is a major concern. We present levels of agreement between self-reported and administrative abortion data from a cohort of young Australian women and examine variations in under-reporting based on socio-demographic characteristics. We linked self-reported abortions in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health with administrative abortion data from Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and hospital morbidity data. We considered self-report to be “in agreement” with administrative data if the survey-based abortion date was within eight weeks of an abortion event in administrative data. Overall, the highest number of abortion events were recorded in the Medicare Benefits Scheme (n=2144), followed by survey self-reported data (n=1974). Among women with an abortion in any administrative data source, just under two-thirds (64%) self-reported this abortion. Women with a healthcare card, and residents of outer regional, remote and very remote areas were significantly more likely to not report an abortion. Separately, among women who self-reported an abortion, 28% did not have a corresponding record in any administrative dataset. This is the first Australian study to examine under-reporting of abortion and document missing abortion data in administrative records.

Keywords: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Linked data sets , Comparative methods , Longitudinal studies

See extended abstract.