An estimate of safe and unsafely induced abortion in Cambodia

Tamara Fetters, Ipas
Ghazaleh Samandari, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In this study we propose a method of estimation combining survey and abortion complications data to produce an induced abortion rate and ratio comprised of both safe and unsafely induced abortions for Cambodia. The study was conducted in Cambodian public facilities where data were collected on all abortion complications, induced abortions and requests among a nationally representative sample of 186 facilities over 21 days. Preliminary results yielded an annual estimate of 30,563 unsafe and safely induced abortions, an abortion rate of 8.43 (CI: 6.13-10.55) and an annual abortion ratio of 8.98 (CI: 6.60-11.35) for public facilities. Annual estimates were applied to the distribution of women’s reported abortion locations from the Cambodia DHS, only 11% of these were in public facilities. Preliminary analyses suggest that the national annual number of abortions could be as high as 73,536, resulting in an abortion rate of 50.7 and an abortion ratio of 54.6 abortions.