Declining estimates of infertility in the United States: 1982-2002

Objective: To determine if the decline in infertility has been uniform across subgroups. Design: Periodic data from the National Fertility Survey and the National Survey of Family Growth were used to determine which factorrs contributed to the decline in 12-month,infertility in the Uhited States. Setting: National Survey of Family Growth, a periodic US nationally representative study. Patient(s): A nationally resentative sample of married women aged 15-44 years, N = 15,303 for pooled data across 4 survey years. Intervention(s): None. Main Outcome Measure(s): Estimates of infertility prevalence among married women aged 15-44 years. Result(s): The decline in 12-month infertility in the United States from 8.5% in 1982 and 7.4% in 2002 was significant. This decline was evident in nearly all subgroups of married women. In the multivariate analysis, 12-month infertility was more likely among women who were older and nulliparous, were non-Hispanic black or Hispanic, and did not have a college degree. The decline in 12-month infertility was observed even after controlling for the compositional differences of the population over time. Conclusion(s): Among mairred women in the United States, there has been a significant decline 12-month infertility, which cannot be explained by changes in the composition of the population from 1982-2002.