Cynthia Harper, PhD
Cynthia C. Harper, PhD, is a Professor in Residence in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Interim Vice Chair for Research. She leads the UCSF-Kaiser Permanente Division of Research BIRCWH (Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health) K12 scholar training program. Dr. Harper is the Director of the Beyond the Pill Program at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Her program aims to increase contraceptive access and equity in the United States by transforming providers' capacity to offer high quality, comprehensive contraceptive care including in abortion ban states. Working together with community partners, the program has trained over 15,000 providers serving 9 million contraceptive patients annually across the country. The program has a successful track record in increasing availability of quality contraceptive care for communities in need, across all policy contexts.
Dr. Harper's team also strengthens youth-friendly contraceptive services, and develops, tests, and disseminates contraceptive education to combat scientific misinformation. Her program receives 200,000 requests each year for their educational resources, available in English and Spanish. These visual educational tools have proven effective for adolescents and young adults from a wide range of communities in increasing their awareness of contraceptive options and how to access them. Her team actively collaborates with their Youth Advisory Board on initiatives for young people. A current intiative REACH Youth is to scale effective contraceptive interventions for young people in support of their reproductive autonomy, especially those facing access challenges in the post-Dobbs context.
Dr. Harper is working to advance contraception at all access points to complement in-person clinic care, including via telemedicine, directly at the pharmacy and online. With a team at UCSF Bixby, she conducted a series of studies over many years and policy contexts that helped to transform emergency contraception from a little known regimen of cut up packets of pills to a product widely available over the counter to everyone. The research informed judicial and FDA decisions to ultimately move emergency contraception over-the-counter in the U.S. It also had a wide impact on policy and regulatory decisions in other countries where people can now access emergency contraception.