Abstract
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.