Provide advocates, community partners, policymakers, providers, and people working on the ground with the evidence they need to inform policy changes and improve access to high-quality sexual and reproductive health care.
Document the effects of post-Dobbs abortion restrictions on abortion and broader reproductive health access and experiences, health outcomes, and social and economic well-being.
Understand how barriers to abortion and reproductive health care access may be compounded by factors such as economic oppression, discrimination in health care, and other systemic oppression based on disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, age, and other factors.
Document the experiences, barriers, and needs of historically excluded groups to support community-led, targeted interventions that improve these groups’ experiences and outcomes.
A major component of the RHEA project is a national survey. The survey explores a wide range of topics around reproductive health — including experiences, attitudes, and preferences around contraception and abortion.
RHEA is an expansion of a large body of work often referred to as the Survey of Women. The Survey of Women focused on 7 states by several, independent institutions and scientists, where RHEA has expanded to 13 focal states and a national sample and is implemented by a dedicated partnership between our team, the Urban Institute, and SisterSong. Our survey was designed on the foundation of many experts, some of whom sit on our Technical Expert Panel.
We designed the survey to hear from people who were assigned female at birth with any gender identity (such as woman or non-binary) who are aged 18-49 years. Our partners at NORC helped us design a rigorous sampling strategy that will allow us to harness the data to understand differences between groups.
The first wave of the survey happened between 2024 and early 2025. Our team is busy cleaning the data file and preparing it for analysis. More than 45,000 people participated in the survey! In early 2026, the survey will go into the field again, to a new group of >45,000 people aged 18-49 assigned female at birth. This is so we can measure changes over time.
Position title: Affiliated Postdoctoral Researcher
Our Partners
Urban Institute
The Urban Institute is a nonprofit research organization founded to create evidence-based solutions for social and economic policy issues. It provides research, data, and analysis to help decision-makers inform policies and programs related to topics like housing, health care, poverty, and immigration to improve people’s lives and strengthen communities. The organization is funded by foundations, corporate philanthropies, public agencies, and individuals, and it is committed to independence, rigor, and transparency in its work.
The RHEA project’s second Principal Investigator is Emily M. Johnston, PhD, Principal Research Associate at the Urban Institute in the Health Policy Division. Emily leads a large team at the Urban Institute who contribute meaningfully to the RHEA project and works closely with our team on a day-to-day basis.
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective (SisterSong)
SisterSong is a Southern based, national membership organization; their purpose is to build an effective network of individuals and organizations to improve institutional policies and systems that impact the reproductive lives of marginalized communities.
For the RHEA project, our team works closely with Noelle Elizabeth Spencer, PhD, MSc (Research Manager) and Nea Richard (Research Fellow) at SisterSong. Noelle and Nea lead the RHEA CAB and are valued members of the research team.
NORC at the University of Chicago
NORC at the University of Chicago is an independent, non-profit social science research organization that conducts research in the public interest for a wide range of government, foundation, and corporate clients. NORC is known for its rigorous methodology, high-quality data collection, and objective, non-partisan analysis on complex societal issues.
The team at NORC are critical partners in the RHEA project. They administer the address-based survey on behalf of the research team.
State Policy Backgrounds
The RHEA project is designed to rigorously assess the impact of the Dobbs ruling on abortion and broader reproductive health access and experiences in the US, which differ drastically across states.
To capture this variation, our research will produce evidence of reproductive health access and experiences in 13 states (Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, and Wisconsin) while centering on communities excluded from reproductive health research and policy conversations. These insights will complement our national-level findings.
The 13 study states represent restrictive and protective reproductive health policy environments and a mix of geographies, racial and ethnic compositions, and political contexts. Nine states were previously studied in the Survey of Women, allowing us to investigate changes since the Dobbs decision.
We’ll gather state-specific evidence through analysis of the RHEA survey; follow-up interviews with a few survey participants; stakeholder interviews with policymakers, advocates, and providers; and community focus groups in each study state. The insights we gather can be used to inform policy changes and improve access to high-quality sexual and reproductive health care.
Our colleagues at the Urban Institute took the lead on developing State Policy Backgrounds for the 13 RHEA states. They “snapshot” each state’s reproductive health access environment, including the present legal restrictions. They also summarize the current policy environment in the state.
Reproductive Health Experiences and Access (RHEA) Project’s community advisory board (CAB)’s purpose is to ensure that communities’ opinions, insights, and experiences are centered in everything the RHEA project does. CAB members come from diverse backgrounds and represent communities across the US. CAB members work alongside the RHEA research team to provide their thoughts and opinions, ask questions, and engage in discussion about different phases of the research, from recruitment of participants to sharing study results.
RHEA Community Advisory Board and Project Team’s First Meeting (Fall 2024)
On Zoom (from top left to bottom right): Sara Lam (US), Joy Spencer (NC), Olymphia O’Neale White (Formerly AZ), Olivia Dockery (Formerly IL), Adrienne Troy-Frazier (SC), Tara Shochet (IA), Myriam Hernandez Jennings (Urban Institute). In person (back row from left to right): Noelle Elizabeth Spencer (SisterSong), Fhrynée Lambert (Formerly REAL), Eiko La Boria (NJ), Jordyn Close (OH), Zsanai Epps (MD), Larada Lee (CA), Courtney Hayward (WI), Nea Richards (SisterSong). In person (front row from left to right): Emily Johnston (Urban Institute), Asha Immanuelle (GA), Amanda Furdge (MS), Christy Altidor (FL), Klaira Lerma (REAL), Alaisha Verdeflor (Urban Institute). Not Pictured: Janie Mejias (US).
Current Community Advisory Board Members
We have 15 seats on our CAB, including one seat for each of the 13 RHEA states. Our recruitment process for the CAB centers on our ability to have representation of diverse identities.
US
Janie Mejias, PhD
Manager of Movement Strengthening, Women Enabled International
US
Sara Lam
Future Leaders Fellow, Vote Run Lead
AZ
***open seat***
CA
Larada Lee
State Campaign Manager for Abortion Access, Advocates for Youth
FL
Christy Altidor, MPH, CPH
Director, Adolescent Health Policy, National Coalition of STD Directors
GA
Asha Immanuelle, MAS, BSN, PHM-C, RN
Maternal Health Equity Program Consultant, Center for Black Women’s Wellness
IA
Tara Shochet PhD, MPH
Director of Programs and Grants, Family Planning Council of Iowa
MS
Amanda Furdge-Shelby
Director of Youth Programs/ SM Database Manager at Children’s Defense Fund
MD
Zsanai Epps, DrPH, MPH, CHES
Senior Director, RJ Initiative, Black Women’s Health Imperative
IL
***open seat***
NC
Joy Spencer
Executive Director, Equity Before Birth
NJ
Eiko La Boria
Founder, The Flow Initiative
OH
Jordyn Close
Deputy Director, Ohio Women’s Alliance
SC
Adrienne Troy-Frazier, MA
Co-Founder, Connector, The BEE Collective
WI
Courtney S. Hayward, PhD, MPA
Executive Director, Wisconsin Community Action Program Association, Inc. (WISCAP)
