Family planning service provision in Illinois religious hospitals: Racial/ethnic variation in access to non-religious hospitals for publicly insured women

Objectives: To identify religious affiliations of hospitals and access to family planning (FP) care available to publicly insured women in Cook County, Illinois. Design: We analyzed Illinois public insurance enrollment data and family planning service claims (2015-2018) for women 18-45. Results: Eighty-five percent of Black/Hispanic women were enrolled in Medicaid managed care plans with a higher percentage of Catholic healthcare than Cook County as a whole compared to 75% of White women (p<0.0001). There were fewer FP services at Catholic (IRR 0.072, 95% CI 0.068-0.076) and Christian non-Catholic (IRR 0.55, 95% CI 0.53-0.56) compared to non-religious hospitals. Conclusions: Medicaid managed care plans may restrict family planning care by limiting patients to religious hospitals. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.