Abstract
After the repeal of Roe vs. Wade in June 2022, women face long-distance travel across state lines to access abortion care. For women who also face socioeconomic hardship, travel for abortion care is a significant burden. To ease this burden, abortion access nonprofits are funding and/or supplying transportation to abortion clinics. However, due to the uneven distribution of demand and supply for abortions, these nonprofits don’t have efficient logistical operations. Thus, nonprofits may risk not serving the needs of vulnerable women without access to adequate reproductive healthcare, and in doing so, waste resources, money, and volunteer hours. To address these challenges, we design an optimization model and create an interactive, web-based planning tool to guide nonprofits in strategically allocating resources and serving demand. In doing so, we collaborate with abortion access nonprofits to cater our model design and interface development to their needs and considerations. Ultimately, we seek to optimize resource allocation for nonprofits providing abortion care logistics and improve abortion access for low-income, underserved women.
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