Mackay, Amanda, Taylor, Selina, Anderson, Emma, and Glass, Beverley (2026) ‘The Right to Have a Family Should Not Be Determined by Your Postcode’: Rural Community Experiences With Fertility Care. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 34 (4). e70237-e70237.

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Abstract

Objective Women in rural and remote Queensland face greater challenges in accessing fertility care than those residing in large regional or metropolitan centres of Australia. This study aims to explore the experiences of women accessing fertility care while living in a rural or remote area of Queensland and their perspectives on ways to improve fertility care.

Setting Interviews were conducted either in-person (Townsville, Emerald, Cloncurry, Mount Isa), via telephone or Microsoft Teams.

Participants Persons currently or previously accessing fertility care, while living rurally in Queensland, identifying as female at birth, being fluent in the English language, and aged 18 years or older participated.

Design Qualitative semi-structured interviews, with data analysed via reflexive thematic analysis, were followed by a descriptive content analysis of participants' ideas for improving rural fertility care.

Results Two main themes with 18 sub-themes emerged from the data. Theme 1: experiences of participants in accessing and receiving fertility care, whilst living in a rural or remote area, and Theme 2: participants' perspectives on how to improve the fertility care experience in rural and remote areas. Residence in a rural or remote location added to the complexity of fertility-related experiences. Rural living influenced fertility knowledge and information access, the accessibility of services, fertility care choice, privacy and social support. Participants articulated strategies from the availability of local information hubs to policy changes aimed at mitigating fertility care postcode-related disadvantage.

Conclusion Rural and remote persons accessing fertility care have highlighted not only the challenges experienced but have proposed strategies to improve rural fertility care.

Item ID:	94182
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1440-1584
Copyright Information:	© 2026 The Author(s). Australian Journal of Rural Health published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of National Rural Health Alliance Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Date Deposited:	02 Oct 2026 07:26
FoR Codes:	42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420602 Health equity @ 40% 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4203 Health services and systems > 420321 Rural and remote health services @ 60%
SEO Codes:	20 HEALTH > 2002 Evaluation of health and support services > 200204 Health inequalities @ 25% 20 HEALTH > 2005 Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health) > 200509 Women's and maternal health @ 25% 20 HEALTH > 2005 Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health) > 200508 Rural and remote area health @ 50%
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