Assessing trends in client demographics and service use for planned parenthood southern New England

Planned Parenthood is a national-level nonprofit that seeks to provide affordable, high-quality reproductive health care and sexual education for both men and women in America. An estimated 78% of the nonprofit's clients nationwide in 2011 earn incomes equal to or below 150% of the federal poverty line. Planned Parenthood of Southern New England (PPSNE) is interested in understanding how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2014 will affect its service provision, specifically regarding the anticipated changes to the delivery and finance of American healthcare for lower-income and other underserved groups. We aim to construct patient profiles by matching client demographics with services used so that PPSNE can develop targeted services and marketing materials. We will perform data mining using de-identified patient and visit profile records from the past three years (over 300,000 records). Trends in areas such as basic demographics, geographic distribution, and insurance status will be identified to help PSSNE further understand its clientele. Based on the quantitative analysis of currently existing data, profiles of several ‘representative' patients, including patient characteristics and trends in services used, will be constructed. Combining this analysis with PPSNE's current marketing research will enable us to provide recommendations to improve the targeting of services and patient retention of PPSNE, as well as contribute to the organization's upcoming five-year strategic plan in response to the ACA of 2014. The findings will allow further understanding of representative patients in PPSNE and potential ways for PPSNE to best direct its future services and marketing materials.