Ballard April M, Wallace Emily, Kaza Pranitha, Self-Brown Shannon, Freeman Matthew C, Caruso Bethany A
Department of Population Health Sciences, Georgia State University School of Public Health, Atlanta, GA, United States.
Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences, Georgia State University School of Public Health, Atlanta, GA, United States.
Front Reprod Health. 2025 Aug 20;7:1589772. doi: 10.3389/frph.2025.1589772. eCollection 2025.
Menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) policy initiatives have emerged as a key strategy to improve adolescent MHH, particularly through the expansion of state-level legislation aimed at increasing access to menstrual materials in K-12 schools in the United States (US). However, limited research has evaluated the implementation or effectiveness of these policies, and efforts to rigorously track and characterize existing policies remain limited. This study systematically reviewed and characterized state-level policies concerning menstrual material access in K-12 schools.
We conducted a comprehensive search of all 50 US state government websites and legal databases to identify relevant legislation. Using MHH domains covered by the indicators recommended by the Global MHH Monitoring Group, we characterized policies. We also estimated policy reach by state and overall using National Center for Education Statistics enrollment data.
We found that 32 (64%) US states have enacted policies since 2017, which have the potential to improve MHH for approximately nine million, or 34%, of K-12 students. Most policies lack comprehensive coverage of essential MHH domains, including only three of the seven MHH domains on average.
These findings highlight the need for more rigorous research to evaluate the effectiveness of different policies and identify the best strategies for implementation.
月经健康与卫生（MHH）政策倡议已成为改善青少年月经健康与卫生的关键策略，特别是通过扩大旨在增加美国K-12学校月经用品获取途径的州级立法。然而，对这些政策的实施情况或有效性进行评估的研究有限，并且对现有政策进行严格跟踪和描述的工作仍然有限。本研究系统地回顾并描述了关于K-12学校月经用品获取的州级政策。
我们对美国所有50个州的政府网站和法律数据库进行了全面搜索，以确定相关立法。使用全球月经健康与卫生监测小组推荐指标所涵盖的月经健康与卫生领域，我们对政策进行了描述。我们还利用美国国家教育统计中心的入学数据，按州和总体情况估算了政策覆盖范围。
我们发现，自2017年以来，美国有32个州（64%）颁布了政策，这些政策有可能改善约900万K-12学生（占34%）的月经健康与卫生状况。大多数政策缺乏对基本月经健康与卫生领域的全面覆盖，平均仅涵盖七个月经健康与卫生领域中的三个。
这些发现凸显了开展更严格研究以评估不同政策有效性并确定最佳实施策略的必要性。
