International disparities in access to infertility services
Open accessAbstract
Objective To characterize the international availability of infertility services.Design A PubMed computer search to identify relevant articles.Setting Academic medical center.Patient(s) None.Intervention(s) None.Main outcome measure(s) None.Result(s) Epidemiological data suggests that approximately 80 million people worldwide are infertile. Most countries in the industrial west have declining fertility rates marked by late marriage, postponed childbearing, and primary infertility. In contrast, in the developing world, there is little voluntary effort to postpone childbearing and early first marriage is common. However, a high prevalence of sexually transmitted infections and infections acquired as a result of inadequate health care result in increased rates of secondary infertility. In developing societies, childlessness is often highly stigmatized and leads to profound social suffering for infertile women in particular, yet most infertile people in the developing world have virtually no access to effective treatment. Internationally, a minority of countries offer IVF, and even where it is available, on average it is prohibitively expensive and utilized by a fraction of those who could benefit from its use.Conclusion(s) Wide disparities exist in the quality, availability, and delivery of infertility services between the developed and developing nations of the world.
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There are almost no data available regarding men's access to fertility care.
“Finally, there are almost no data available regarding men’s access to fertility care (Nachtigall, 2006; Tarsi and Tuff, 2012; Rogers, 2017; Dyer et al., 2020).”
From Declining global fertility rates and the implications for family planning and family building: an IFFS consensus document based on a narrative review of the literature (2024) · cites this paper as Nachtigall, 2006
The Cost of Infertility Services section (page not provided) discusses limited access to treatment for infertile men and women, while The Experience of Infertility gives a treatment-seeking figure for women. Neither passage addresses whether data on men’s access are scarce; searches for men’s access data and treatment-seeking information found no such statement. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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- Authors
- Nachtigall, R. D.
- Affiliations
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Corresponding author
- Nachtigall, Robert D.
- Venue
- Fertility and Sterility
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2006-04
- Volume
- 85
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 871-875
- ISSN
- 0015-0282 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2013411860
- Cited by
- 347
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 25
- FWCI
- 1.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Fertility and Sterility (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DigitalGeorgetown (Georgetown University Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Reproductive Medicine › Reproductive Health and Technologies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Reproductive Health and Contraception
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences
- Keywords
- infertility services, developing countries, in vitro fertilization, infertility stigma, secondary infertility, primary infertility, fertility decline
- MeSH terms
- Female, Health Services Accessibility, Humans, Infertility, Male, Global Health, Internationality
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