CPRC

Past Research: Professor Kalmuss’ past work focused on the determinants and consequences of different aspects of women’s fertility-related decision-making with a particular focus on poor, young women. Her research has used models incorporating both sociological and social psychological models, with a model of decision-making supplemented by structural factors affecting behavior. She has examined decisions regarding: birth control use among low-income (primarily non-White) adolescent females; use and continuation of the newly-available hormonal methods of contraception (Norplant and Depo-Provera) among poor, minority females; pregnancy resolution decision-making among young women; prenatal care behavior among poor, non-White women; infertility service use by infertile women, and desired family size among middle-class women expecting their first child. She also conducted a study of the consequences of subsequent childbearing among teenage mothers. With the exception of this last project, most of these studies were longitudinal in nature and relied on secondary data analyses (of the NSFG and the NLSY), or on primary collection of survey data. This research was funded by NICHD, CDC, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Community Service Society of NYC, and results have been published in several scientific journals.

Present Research: For the past five years, Kalmuss has shifted her sexual health focus to men, with a particular interest in men’s utilization of sexual health care services. She is the research evaluator for the Young Men’s Health Initiative at Columbia University and NY Presbyterian Hospital that operates clinic, school and community-based sexual health services for poor, minority, primarily immigrant men. Kalmuss also is PI of a study examining men’s use of sexual health services. Her research focusing on the men interviewed by the 2002 NSFG has been critical in documenting that the majority of U.S. men receive no or limited sexual health care. The second phase of that project used focus groups of Latino and African-American men in northern Manhattan to examine barriers men experience in perceiving a need for sexual health care services and in accessing care once they perceive the need. Preliminary data from these focus groups suggest that common assumptions about factors deterring men from seeking care (lack of knowledge) or facilitating such behavior (women’s influences) are over-stated for this population. In the focus groups, men’s masculinity narratives (notions of what it is ‘be a man’) emerged as strong influences on sexual health care seeking.

Future Research: Kalmuss’ research plans in the future remain concentrated on men. She will conduct additional qualitative research to help develop and evaluate social marketing messages to increase sexual health care utilization among low-income Latino and African American men. She also will collaborate with colleagues at Engender Health who developed the Men as Partner (MAP) program in several resource-poor countries to conduct quantitative and qualitative research, with a view to incorporating findings from these analyses into the development of sexual health programs for men in the U.S. Her research is expected to continue to push the frontier forward on men’s sexuality, exploring ways to encourage men’s awareness about—and questioning of—the effect that their masculinity narratives have on their sexual health behavior.

Professor Kalmuss' Departmental Biography Page