The Office of Population Affairs (OPA) is releasing the Family Planning Annual Report (FPAR) 2023 National Summary. This FPAR presents data from grant recipients in the Title X family planning program (Title X) to monitor and report program performance. Title X grant recipients served nearly 2.8 million clients in 2023, a 7% increase from 2022.

“The Family Planning Annual Report shows our nation’s steady progress in continuing to rebuild the Title X network,” said Clare Coleman, President & CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA). “Following a series of politically motivated attacks over the last decade on top of a multi-year global pandemic, our network of family planning providers remains tenacious and strong, but we have to do more to meet the demonstrated need for publicly funded family planning and sexual health care.”  

"The Title X program has received flat funding from Congress for a decade, leading to a devastating decline in people served by Title X-funded health centers. Since 2013, when Title X-funded sites served 4.6 million patients, the nation’s family planning program has been targeted for elimination several times and endured ideological attacks that drove roughly 1,000 health centers from the network. Since 2021, the Title X provider network has been rebuilding, and the 2023 data show that slow progress continues to be made. At a time when restrictions on sexual and reproductive health care continue to escalate, funding patient-centered, high-quality birth control and sexual health services made possible by the nation’s family planning program should be a national funding priority,” Coleman concluded.

Key findings from the 2023 FPAR

In 2023, Title X continued to rebuild the network and expand access to diverse clients nationwide.

• Title X provided services to 2.8 million unique clients in 2023, a 7% increase from 2022 and an 80% increase from 2020.
• Title X grant recipients hosted 4.3 million family planning encounters at 3,853 service sites across 50 states in the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau.

• Title X played a critical role in providing affordable family planning and preventive health services to clients in families with low incomes and those without private insurance. 

• There is no charge for Title X services to people with family incomes below 100% of the most recent federal poverty level (FPL) guidelines, and services are discounted on a sliding scale for people with family incomes between 101-250% (for example, $30,001 for a family of four) of the FPL.
• 60% of clients had family incomes below 101% of the FPL and received services for no charge.
• 23% of clients had family incomes between 101-250% of the FPL and received services at a discounted rate.
• 27% of Title X clients were uninsured, more than three times the national uninsured rate for U.S. adults (8%).
• 67% of the clients who paid with some form of health insurance relied on public insurance.

• Title X grant recipients provided care to a diverse group of clients. Of the 2.8 million unique family planning clients served in 2023:
• 85% (2.4 million) were women.
• 48% (1.3 million) identified as a race other than White.
• Nearly 36% of clients identified as Hispanic or Latino.
• 19% of clients reported a limited proficiency in English.
• The Title X program provided clients access to a wide range of contraceptive methods to meet individual needs and allow clients to choose the method that works best for them. 72% of all clients reported using a contraceptive method for family planning:
• Nearly 71% of the 2.4 million female clients reported using a contraceptive method.
• 53% of the 419,128 male clients reported using a contraceptive method.

• Title X was an essential resource for STI and HIV testing and cancer screening.
• Title X providers performed 1,343,403 chlamydia tests, 1,567,115 gonorrhea tests, 734,879 syphilis tests, and 984,375 confidential HIV tests.
• Title X providers conducted 461,085 cervical cancer screenings (Pap tests) for female clients.
• Title X providers leveraged additional public and private funding sources to deliver services.
• Title X funding accounts for 17% of grant recipients’ total revenue, with the remainder coming from third-party payers like Medicaid and other public and private insurance (56%), and other small federal grants and state and local governments (27%).
• Title X funding makes it possible for providers to leverage other funding sources and provide additional services, serve more clients, and improve overall infrastructure and quality of care.

The theme for LGBTQ+ History Month in 2024 is "Medicine – #UnderTheScope"

This is a fantastic opportunity to explore the contribution of LGBT+ people to advances in medical science, but also to reflect on the community’s relationship with the world of medicine, such as the history of the AIDS crisis, the medical treatment of trans people and LGBT+ people’s contributions to the NHS.

Quick Facts



The United States celebrates LGBTQ+ History Month in October!

October. LGBT History Month was created in 1994 by Rodney Wilson, a high school history teacher in Missouri. In 1995, a resolution passed by the General Assembly of the National Education Association included LGBT History Month within a list of commemorative months. October was selected to coincide with National Coming Out Day (Oct. 11), which was already established, and the anniversary of the first march on Washington for gay and lesbian rights in 1979.

In the United Kingdom (UK) LGBTQ+ History Month is celebrated in February!

LGBT+ History Month in the United Kingdom was first celebrated in February in 2005. The month is celebrated in February to commemorate the partial decriminalization of male homosexuality in England and Wales in 1967. The celebration of LGBT+ History Month in the UK was started by Schools Out, a UK organization which campaigns for LGBT+ equality in education. They first celebrated the month in February 2005 in response to the growing need to recognize and celebrate the contributions and achievements of the LGBT+ community in the UK.

Check out these LGBTQIA+ Historical Figures in Medicine

Native American and Indigenous Focus Day

Oct 12

More Teens Are Reporting That A Partner Has Threatened Their Reproductive Health

New data from the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NVDH), also known as The Hotline, shows that twenty-four 13- to 17-year-olds called about reproductive coercion in the year before June 2022; in the next year, that number rose to 44.

The volume of calls is not huge, but The Hotline’s operators say they show the impact of the end of a federal right to abortion — and that they may be just the tip of the iceberg, since stigma, access to a computer or phone, and safety concerns impact survivors’ ability to contact The Hotline.

Marium Durrani, the vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline, told The 19th that these new data points about young people and reproductive coercion underscore not only the prevalence of teen dating violence, but of the real-world reverberations that the Dobbs ruling has had on intimate partner violence.

A mom lost her daughter to domestic violence. Now, she’s losing faith in the law.

Almost 10 years after her child’s murder, Debbie Richardson says Wyoming is failing to protect victims amid increasing violence against women.

“She was my only daughter,” Debbie said. “She was my baby.” 

The murder received considerable attention. But in the 10 years since Crystal’s death, Debbie said, that attention has yet to result in any significant changes to state law or policy that could help prevent domestic violence, especially when it comes to gun deaths. 

The problem may be getting worse, too. The most recent research from the Violence Policy Center, a national gun control advocacy group, shows Wyoming has the third highest rate in the nation of women murdered by men — a significant jump from the state’s typical position between the middle and bottom half of states.  



“I just wish there was better laws to protect these people,” Debbie said. “They’re so afraid to leave. And what I really feel bad about is Crystal left, and she still got killed.”

Addressing Teen Dating Violence in Schools

Experts say it's important to teach teens to recognize healthy and unhealthy relationships.

Relationships are a core part of everyday life, especially for young people. As they move through their teens, some students begin to explore romantic relationships. While this can be an exciting and happy time, risks are also involved.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 16 million women and 11 million men who report experiencing intimate partner violence say it first happened before they were 18. These include instances of physical violence, sexual violence and stalking.

Youth who are female, LGBTQ or unsure of their gender identity are all at a higher risk of experiencing youth intimate partner violence, also known as teen dating violence, the CDC says.

Oct 6-12

More trans teens attempted suicide after states passed anti-trans laws, a study shows

“We found a very sharp and statistically significant rise in suicide attempt rates after enactment of the laws,” she says. A small rise was seen in a state soon after laws were enacted, followed by a sharper rise two or three years later. Among 13-17 year olds, two years after a law took effect, the likelihood of a past-year suicide attempt was 72% higher than it was before passage.

Nath notes a randomized control trial would not be possible for this kind of research, since you can’t randomly assign someone to live in one state or another. Instead, they analyzed the survey data for each state over time, comparing rates before and after laws were passed. The analysis took months, she says, and controlled for a variety of potentially confounding factors in order to isolate the impact of these laws on past-year suicide attempts.

“To see these numbers after everything was taken into account and the model still held — it's terrifying,” she says.

This study is the first of its kind, Nath adds. “These findings demonstrate that — regardless of a person's political beliefs — if you live in a state that has passed an anti-transgender law, transgender, nonbinary young people in your home state are significantly more likely to attempt to take their own life,” she says. “This is the reality for these young people, and it's not acceptable.”



Associate

Professor Brittany Charlton of Harvard Medical School, who wasn’t involved with the study, finds it impressive.

“This study is just so important,” she says. “It's contributing to the growing body of evidence that demonstrates that these discriminatory anti-LGBTQ policies have harmful effects on health.” It does so convincingly, she says, with a large sample size and strong research methods.

Suicides Among Kids Ages 8 to 12 Are Rising, Especially Among Girls

The kids are not alright. New data shows a troubling 8% annual increase in the number of American children ages 8 to 12 who died by suicide, with the sharpest increase seen among girls.

Suicide has now become the fifth leading cause of death among both male and female preteens, report a team led by Donna Ruch, of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Ruch works at the hospital's Center for Suicide Prevention and Research. Her team published its findings July 30 in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Rising rates of suicides among children have set off alarm bells for experts in recent years.

"In 2021, the National Institute of Mental Health convened a research roundtable series to address the rising rates of suicides in preteens, defined as youths aged 8 to 12 years," Ruch's group noted.

They said that, until now, there's been little good data on suicides among preteens.

10 Things to Try When You’re Too Depressed to Get Out of Bed

People who’ve been there share what actually helps on their worst mornings.

If I had to describe my relationship with my bed, I'd say it’s…complicated. It’s my favorite place to rest and recover when the world and my feelings are too much—yes, bed rotting is a legitimate form of self-care—but it can also be a bona fide mood ring. The more time I spend in it, the longer it’s been since I’ve made it, the nastier the sheets are, and the worse I’m doing. And, of course, if I’m struggling to get out of it in the first place—well, that’s a pretty normal day for a lot of us with depression.

There are a bunch of reasons why this condition can make clawing yourself out of bed feel like an Olympic sport. For one, fatigue and sleep disturbances (including insomnia or sleeping too much) are common symptoms of depression. Add feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and emptiness to that list—along with a loss of interest in things you used to enjoy—and impossible mornings aren’t exactly surprising. Not to mention all the usual reasons many of us, depressed or not, aren’t exactly raring to vault from sleep into our daily routines—hi, dark mornings, packed to-do lists, and the general state of the world. It’s a wonder we can get up at all some days.

October 13 is Herpes Awareness Day, an opportunity to raise awareness around the causes, risks, and treatment of different types of herpes infections, particularly genital herpes. Perhaps more importantly, it’s a chance to debunk myths around the disease, start conversations about what it really means to have a genital herpes infection and, hopefully, destroy the stigma around the disease that impacts nearly 1 out women between the ages of 14 and 49.

WIN that costume contest this Halloween!

Two Democrats Are Trying to Make This STI Medication Free

Single Boomers Are Having 'S-E-X' They're Also Seeing A Surge In STIs

Condoms Aren't A Fact Of Life For Your Americans. They're An Afterthought.

This newsletter was developed (in part) with federal funds from the Office of Population Affairs. For more information on the rules and regulations that apply to our programs, please visit

https://www.hhs.gov/opa/title-x-family-planning/index.html