Family Planning Program Orientation
The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) funds 48 agencies in more than 170 sites that provide accessible, confidential reproductive health care services to women, men, and adolescents, especially low-income individuals and those without health insurance.
The overarching goal of the Family Planning Program is to improve the intendedness of pregnancy and improve birth outcomes for high-need women and families while reducing racial, ethnic and economic disparities in those outcomes.
The Family Planning Program provides:
- Contraceptive (birth control) education, counseling and a broad range of methods (including long-acting reversible contraception such as IUDs and implants) to reduce unintended pregnancies and to improve birth spacing and outcomes
- Preconception health services
- Counseling and testing for HIV
- Testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections
- Routine screening for breast and cervical cancer
- Health education in community settings to promote reproductive health, to prevent unintended pregnancy and to promote access to reproductive and preventive health services
In 2016, over 300,000 women and men received services through the NYSDOH Family Planning Program, of which more than 50,000 were adolescents. According to Guttmacher Institute, approximately 70,000 unintended pregnancies, 12,000 teen pregnancies, 25,000 abortions, and 3,000 chlamydia cases were prevented by New York State Family Planning Program providers in 2014.
Review a listing of family planning program providers in New York.
Sources:
- New York State Department of Health. Comprehensive Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care Services Program. Revised April 2017
- Guttmacher. State Facts on Publicly Funded Family Planning Services: New York. September 2016