Purpose: For Black women who have sex with women (BWSW), obtaining routine healthcare can be obstructed by a number of psychosocial barriers, including experiences of stigma, related to both sexual orientation and race, and medical mistrust, both race-based and global. Previous research demonstrates that sexual orientation and race-based stigma, as well as global and race-based medical mistrust, each have a negative impact on health outcomes and engagement in care (EIC) independently. This study addresses gaps in the literature by examining the impact of these psychosocial barriers and their interactions among BWSW, an understudied population. Methods: Participants (256 BWSW) were surveyed at a Black Gay Pride festival. Separate generalized linear models assessed the independent and multiplicative effects of participants' self-reported sexual orientation stigma, race-based stigma, race-based medical mistrust, and global medical mistrust related to their engagement in routine physical exams and blood pressure screenings. Results: Prevalence rates of both stigma measures were low, but prevalence rates of global and race-based medical mistrust were high. The results show that experiencing sexual orientation stigma or having race-based medical mistrust predicts significantly lower EIC. Furthermore, the frequencies of obtaining recent physical examinations and blood pressure screenings were significantly related to three-and two-way interactions between stigma and medical mistrust, respectively. Conclusion: There is an urgent need to address the intersectionality of these psychosocial barriers in an effort to increase BWSW's EIC.Keywords: barriers to care, lesbian, race/ethnicity/culture, women who have sex with women (WSW)
Objective
The present study aimed to: (1) identify recent temporal changes in the prevalence of different cognitive and behavioral eating disorder (ED) symptoms, current probable EDs, lifetime ED diagnoses, and mental healthcare use among college students across the United States; (2) determine whether established disparities in ED prevalence and receiving mental healthcare have widened or narrowed over time for marginalized groups within this population.
Method
Participants included a large national sample of U.S. college students (N = 286,720) who completed the repeated cross‐sectional Healthy Minds Study from 2013 to 2020. Descriptive statistics and polynomial regressions quantified time‐trends in participants' ED symptoms and past 12‐month mental healthcare. Moderated regressions examined temporal changes in ED symptoms and mental healthcare based on sociodemographic characteristics.
Results
Individuals' engagement in different cognitive and behavioral ED symptoms, and likelihoods of exhibiting current probable EDs, reporting lifetime ED diagnoses, and (for individuals with current probable EDs) receiving therapy or counseling in the past 12‐months exhibited nonlinear increases from 2013 to 2020. Further, the prevalence of current and lifetime ED symptoms and (for symptomatic individuals) past 12‐month mental healthcare differed over time for individuals with different BMIs and gender, sexual, and racial/ethnic identities (but not ages). In particular, individuals with higher BMIs and those who identified as male, bisexual, and gay, lesbian, or queer exhibited increasing ED pathology over time.
Discussion
These findings provide important information on groups of U.S. college students that have experienced increasing burden of ED symptoms and may help guide ED prevention, treatment, and research priorities.
Public Significance
Recent temporal changes in the prevalence of eating disorder (ED) symptoms and mental healthcare were examined in a national sample of U.S. young adults.
Non‐linear increases in ED symptoms and mental healthcare were identified among U.S. young adults overall from 2013 to 2020.
U.S. young adults with higher BMIs, males, bisexual, and gay, lesbian, or queer individuals exhibited increasing ED burden over time.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.