Although abortion became legal four decades ago, Americans remain staunchly divided over its acceptability. While researchers have been interested in the factors shaping abortion attitudes, there are almost no reviews of this work. We examine the factors shaping Americans’ abortion attitudes and assess the state of published peer‐reviewed articles in this area over the last 15 years. Using a mixed‐methods systematic review, we analyze and critique the findings from 116 journal articles that have examined attitudes about abortion between 2001 and 2016. Among the many predictors and outcomes examined, we show that religion is by far the most utilized statistically significant independent variable, followed by education and income/employment. In addition to examining the factors that shape attitudes, we provide insight into the characteristics of this published work. We offer several suggestions for improving research on this important topic, including a better utilization of social science theory, examining the attitudes of teens, increasing the use of mixed‐methods studies, and drawing on longitudinal data and analyses that consider the influence of the larger context for shaping attitudes.

中文翻译：

---

审查有关堕胎的公众意见：过去15年的混合方法系统研究综述

尽管堕胎在四十年前已成为合法，但美国人仍然对接受堕胎持坚定态度。尽管研究人员对影响堕胎态度的因素感兴趣，但几乎没有有关这项工作的评论。我们研究了影响美国人堕胎态度的因素，并评估了过去15年该领域发表的同行评审文章的状态。使用混合方法的系统评价，我们分析和批评了116篇文章的发现，这些文章检查了2001年至2016年之间对堕胎的态度。在所研究的许多预测因素和结果中，我们表明，宗教是迄今为止使用最多的具有统计意义的独立变量变量，其次是教育和收入/就业。除了研究影响态度的因素之外，我们提供有关此出版作品特征的见解。我们提供了一些建议来改进有关此重要主题的研究，包括更好地利用社会科学理论，研究青少年的态度，增加混合方法研究的使用以及利用纵向数据和考虑较大因素影响的分析塑造态度的环境。