Contraception and clean needles: feasibility of combining mobile reproductive health and needle exchange services for female exotic dancers.
Young women engaged in exotic dancing have a higher need for reproductive health services than women not in this profession, and many also use drugs or exchange sex for money or drugs. Few report receiving reproductive health services. We describe a public health, academic, and community partnership that provided reproductive health services on needle exchange mobile vans in the "red light district" in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. Women made 220 visits to the vans in the first 21 months of the program's operation, and 65% of these visits involved provision of contraception. Programmatic costs were feasible. Joint provision of needle exchange and reproductive health services targeting exotic dancers has the potential to reduce unintended pregnancies and link pregnant, substance-abusing women to reproductive care, and such programs should be implemented more widely.
Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA. eva.moore@cw.bc.ca
Eva
E
Moore
Jennifer
J
Han
Christine
C
Serio-Chapman
Cynthia
C
Mobley
Catherine
C
Watson
Mishka
M
Terplan
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003153:Community Health Services; D003267:Contraception; D003615:Dancing; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D040261:Harm Reduction; D006801:Humans; D018671:Needle-Exchange Programs; D016272:Occupational Health; D060728:Reproductive Health; D034121:Reproductive Health Services; D060386:Sex Workers; D055815:Young Adult