DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

The National Survey of Fertility Barriers (NSFB) is a nationally representative telephone survey of women ages 25 to 45. This study was funded by grant R01-HD044144 from the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) entitled “Infertility: Pathways and Psychological Outcomes.” Professor Lynn K. White at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was the Principal Investigator for the first two years of the project. Following her retirement, Professor David R. Johnson from Penn State, who was an investigator on the project, assumed the PI role on the project.

This study was a collaborative effort of researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Penn State, Alfred University, University of Connecticut, and University of Nebraska Medical Center. The focus of the survey was biomedical fertility barriers. These barriers include subfecundity, but also repeated miscarriages, health conditions that preclude childbearing, and sterilization regret. The survey was conducted between 2004 and 2007 and includes completed interviews with 4,712 women aged 25 to 45 and 936 of their partners. The data were collected by the Survey Research Center at Pennsylvania State University and the Bureau of Sociological Research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.