ScholarOne - The quality of Lactation Accommodations in Higher Education

Federal and California laws provide legal protections to lactating students in higher education; little research has assessed the implementation of these policies. This study evaluated the availability and quality of lactation accommodations across California universities. A 73-item coding tool was developed to evaluate 14 domains across 32 polices at 32 universities. Each domain and total scale were scored on two dimensions: comprehensiveness and strength. Median scores varied by policy category and school type (CSU, UC, private), with several domains lacking strong policies. Private schools had a lower median percentage of comprehensiveness in access and lactation support policies compared to UC and CSU schools (p’s ≤ 0.02). The median proportion of strengths in these categories was higher in UC schools compared to CSU and private schools (p’s = 0.03). Though, California universities mention some lactation policies, a more comprehensive set of stated policies is needed overall.