The contraceptive experiences of Mexican immigrant and Mexican-Americans remain a poorly understood phenomenon. While we know that fertility differentials exist between Mexican origin and non-Hispanic white women, our understanding of the differentials is still limited. Moreover, we know little about motivations of Mexican origin women to procure contraceptives in 1 versus another point of service. And, while a considerable amount is known about the rates of oral contraceptive compliance and continuation, especially for the general populations in developed countries, we know virtually nothing about the processes through which women experience oral contraceptive use, especially low-income Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American women in the US. Finally, while strong evidence suggests that social networks increase knowledge about contraception in a variety of settings, we know extremely little about the workings of the social networks of Mexican origin women in the US. regarding contraceptive use. Women who live on the US-Mexico border have an alternate source of prescription contraception not available to most Americans: they can cross to Mexico to buy their pills over-the-counter (OTC) in Mexican pharmacies at a fraction of the cost of equivalent pills in the US. We propose, therefore, to take advantage of the natural experiment that the US-Mexico border provides to explore what motivates Mexican origin women in the US to obtain their pills from different sources-US family planning clinics or Mexican pharmacies-and to obtain a deep and detailed understanding of how these women experience their pill use. We will accomplish these goals through a series of in-depth and follow-up interviews with Hispanic women: 20 who get their pills OTC in pharmacies in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and 20 who obtain them from family planning clinics in El Paso, Texas.
