Defining and documenting period poverty, with Elizabeth Alderman, MD & Julie Samuels

According to recent research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, identifying period poverty in adolescents and young adults among low- and middle-income countries has been widely studied, highlighting data of disparities, negative downstream impacts, and more.

In high-income countries, however, little data exists, prompting researchers to further explore prevalence. Now, those researchers join us to explain what the available data show and the lack of available and published controlled trials for intervention.

“While there's been an abundance of research in low- and middle-income countries establishing that adolescents and young adults experience poverty in those locations, we specifically wanted to look at how individuals in high-income countries are affected,” said Julie Samuels, a 4th-year medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and co-author of the study.

“We defined period poverty as inadequate access to menstrual hygiene tools, so any supplies used to absorb blood during a menstrual period, as well as access to washing facilities and proper waste management. An important part of our study is that any individual who menstruates can experience period poverty,” Samuels explained.

“After performing the systematic review, we identified 8 studies that demonstrated that period poverty is an issue in the US and Canada, and we found variable prevalences of period poverty ranging from as low as 9.8% to as high as 65% across different settings, which included both national and more localized samples,” said Samuels, who added a secondary point of the study was to identify effective interventions in place to deal with period poverty.

“Unfortunately, we did not find any effective interventions,” she added.

Clinician’s role in addressing period poverty

So what can clinicians do to increase awareness and be advocates to curb period poverty that exists in high-income countries like the US and Canada?

“The main thing is for clinicians to assess for this,” said Elizabeth Alderman, MD, Chief, Attending Physician, Division of Adolescent Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Montefiore.

“Anyone who menstruates can experience period poverty—lack of access to period products, and also lack of access to medication that might be necessary to treat other symptoms related to periods. So we as clinicians need to ask the question: ‘When we have a patient who can menstruate and is menstruating, are you having trouble getting napkins, tampons, or any other product that you might need related to your period?’ Asking the question point-blank.”

Additionally, recommending the resources you are aware of to patients can make a difference, says Alderman, who noted resources could already be in place, but awareness might be lacking.

“As a clinician, [we need] to advocate for screening for period poverty, teaching our patients about where they can access period products in their community at either free or low cost, and finding out and advocating for more access through public institutions,” Alderman told Contemporary OB/GYN.

“Particularly, the New York City public schools have it, so many of our public institutions could be places that would give access to our patients. But as clinicians, we are advocates, and we can use the channels for advocacy to do that.”

Editor’s note: All stock images/videos courtesy of Stock.Adobe.com.

Reference:

Samuels, J, Liberow C, Alderman EM, Cabana MD. Adolescent and Young Adult Period Poverty: A Systematic Review. Journal of Adolescent Health. Accessed May 11, 2026. https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(26)00061-3/abstract