Vasectomy Rate Increased in U.S. Men From 2014 to 2021

TUESDAY, Aug. 29, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Vasectomy rates increased in the United States from 2014 to 2021 among privately insured men, according to a study recently published online in Urology.

Zhong Huang, from University of Chicago, and colleagues used commercial health insurance claims data (2014 to 2021) to calculate the annual vasectomy rate in U.S. men aged 18 to 64 years.

The researchers found that among privately insured U.S. men, the vasectomy rate increased from 0.427 percent in 2014 to 0.537 percent in 2021, representing an absolute change of 0.11 percent and a relative change of 26 percent from 2014 to 2021. The absolute changes in vasectomy rate were greatest for men with three or more children (0.489 percent), with two children (0.295 percent), with a wife not of advanced maternal age (0.276 percent), and aged 35 to 44 years (0.243 percent), while relative changes were greatest in men with no children (61 percent), with a wife of advanced maternal age (40.8 percent), who were single (40.6 percent), and aged 18 to 24 years (36.7 percent). The absolute and relative changes were greater in rural versus urban geographies in every region except the Northeast.

“Google Trends analyses, media outlets, and retrospective reviews of billing and electronic medical records from academic hospitals reflect greater interest in vasectomies after the overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022," write the authors.

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