Hayley V. McMahon, MSPH, CPH (she/her) is an abortion scholar-advocate from rural Appalachia. She is currently a doctoral student and Laney Fellow at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and a Doctoral Fellow at The Center for Reproductive Health Research in the Southeast (RISE), where her research explores the connections between abortion misinformation and disinformation, stigma, and criminalization in the U.S. Southeast. She is a proud first-generation college graduate who holds a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University and a MSPH in Health Education and Health Communications from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In addition to her work as a public health scientist, Hayley is also an abortion fund board member, a clinic escort, and a former abortion care worker.
Areas of Interest
- Community Based Research
- Health Communication
- Health Literacy
- Public Health Policy
- Reproductive Health
- Social Determinants of Health
Education
- B.A., Cultural Anthropology 2017, Duke University
- MSPH, Health Education and Health Communications 2022, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Affiliations & Activities
Doctoral Fellow, The Center for Reproductive Health Research in the Southeast (RISE)
Board of Directors, Holler Health Justice
Publications
- McMahon, H.V., Moss, R.A., Pearce, N., Sehgal, S., Kriete, M., Lucier-Julian, Z., Redd, S.K., & Rice, W.S., 2025, Weight and Procedural Abortion Complications: A Systematic Review, Obstetrics & Gynecology, ,
- Dozier J.L., Burke A.E., McMahon H.V., Berger B.O., Quasebarth M., Sufrin C., & Bell, S.O., 2024, "Maybe if we weren't in the pandemic, I would have reconsidered": Experiences of abortion care-seeking during the COVID-19 pandemic in Maryland, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 56, 125-135
- McMahon, H.V. & McMahon, B.D., 2024, Automating Untruths: ChatGPT, Self-Managed Medication Abortion, and the Threat of Misinformation in a Post-Roe world, Frontiers in Digital Health, 6,
- Rice W.S., Hartwig S.A., McMahon H.V., Irwin C., Quinones, N., Redd S.K., & Singh, K.A., 2024, Collective Persistence, Care, and Advocacy Amid Repeated Attacks on Reproductive Freedom, American Journal of Public Health, , e1-e3
- McMahon, H.V., Serrano, L., Vyavahare, T., Hairston, I., Ayala, S., Jah, J., Hailstorks, T., Diallo, D.D., & Mosley, E.A., 2024, My Health in My Hands: Improving Medication Abortion Knowledge and Closing Disparities with a Community-Led Media Intervention, Health Equity, 8, 138-142
- McMahon, H.V., Riker, L., Broughton-Jones, H., Trotta, L., & Srinivasulu, S., 2024, Organizing Primary Care Clinicians to Expand Reproductive Health Access: A Qualitative Program Evaluation, Family Medicine, ,
- McMahon, H.V., Karp, C., Bell, S.O., Shiferaw, S., Seme, A., Yihdego, M., & Zimmerman, L.A., 2022, Availability of Postabortion Care Services in Ethiopia: Estimates from a 2020 National Sample of Public Facilities, Contraception X, ,
- McMahon, H.V., 2021, Medically Safe, Legally Risky: The Urgent Need to Decriminalize Self-Managed Abortion in the United States, Public Health Review, 4,