The Prevention First Act and Women Health - Essay Example

"The Prevention First Act and Women Health" is a wonderful example of a paper on the health system. The United States and the entire world have for a long time struggled with disparities in access to healthcare among women. One source of polarization in terms of healthcare policy for women is accessibility to information and health services regarding reproduction. Stakeholders and policymakers on health matters have responded with policies deliberately seeking to reduce these disparities and improve the reproductive health situation among our women. One important policy to the reproductive health of women in the Prevention First Act; the policy framers appreciated major challenges and therefore devised ways through this policy to end them. The question, therefore, is whether this act has been successful in meeting its intended objectives and ultimately improving the reproductive health situation for our women.

            The policy was introduced in the wake of alarmingly increasing cases of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and wide gaps in terms of accessing healthcare among women. The major objective was therefore to increase access to family planning among women and foster the implementation of effective educational programs at the level of states. The policy sought to increase the accessibility of contraception in order to reverse the upward trend in unwanted pregnancies as well as abortions. It required an increase in the funding of programs such as Title X which benefit the entire public. It also required that states come up with effective ways of educating women on contraception and streamlined application procedures by states to increase family planning coverage for women from low-income backgrounds who qualify for Medicaid (Salganicoff, 2007).

            Indeed the past few years have seen financing for programs such as abstinence-only education grow to record high levels of up to $ 2004 in the year 2008. Title X is now receiving almost historical levels of funding from public coffers; this program particularly funds programs for family planning among teenagers and women from low-income families. Twenty-six states were able to expand the accessibility of family planning to poor women through waivers under Medicaid. Up to this end, I believe the Prevention First Act has really attained tremendous success in meeting its intended objectives since public awareness, acceptance, access, and usage of contraceptive has significantly grown higher. This means women are now able to avoid unintended pregnancies and plan their families well and therefore avert the chances of procuring abortion services. Education on contraception has been a major success and accessible to women of all walks including teens and low-income earners. This means that America’s woman is now able to effectively access reproductive health information and take appropriate steps in life.

            However, just like any other program with public interests, the policy has received a number of challenges; many numbers of policymakers at state and federal levels question whether the programs should receive public funds especially following revelations that education for abstinence-only lacks efficiency. Also despite the increased acceptance of contraception they still are legislations that aim at limiting the availability of abortion to women and teenagers. These are just some of the hurdles to the policy changes under the Prevention First Act but ultimately the act has achieved a lot in delivering reproductive health, reducing disparities on the same among women, and increasing education on contraception. It has delivered a breakthrough among women when it comes to reproductive health matters.

            In conclusion therefore I believe the Prevention First Act and related policies have successfully met the objectives of reducing disparities in women's health, increasing access and awareness to contraception, and therefore improving the reproductive health situation for the American woman. Under these policies funding for public campaigns such as Title X and abstinence-only education has gone upwards tremendously. the efforts have gone a long way in addressing the plight of women in terms of health disparities, access to service, and reproductive health information as well as increasing awareness.

 

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