Intersectional Minority Stress and Mental Health: A Prospective Study of Sexual Minority Youth of Color

• In Event: Sexual and Gender Minority Youth’s Mental Health: Learning Over Time

Abstract

Victimization due to being a sexual minority person (i.e., someone that identifies as lesbian, gay or bisexual; LGB), compromises the mental health of sexual minority youth (SMY; Birkett et al., 2015). However, SMY of color (SMYoC) have multiple minoritized identities, and few studies have examined the implications of intersectional minority stress for their mental health (Thoma & Huebner, 2013). Specifically, there has been limited research examining the overlap in racial discrimination and LGB victimization in studies of SMY. Existing studies have also been cross-sectional, limiting our understanding of the long-term psychological consequences of intersectional minority stress. Our study tests these longitudinal associations with latent growth curve (LGC) modeling in a sample of SMYoC. We test three intersectional hypotheses: the additive hypothesis—racial discrimination and LGB victimization are independently associated with prospective mental health; the multiplicative hypothesis—racial discrimination and LGB victimization interact in their association with prospective mental health, and the inuring hypothesis—only racial discrimination or LGB victimization are associated with prospective mental health.

Participants were recruited from LGBT community organizations in the U.S. Northeast and Southwest. Youth were ages 15-24 (n=478) and surveyed four times nine months apart. See Table 1 for demographic characteristics and descriptive statistics. Predictor Variables. Racial discrimination (Brief Racism and Life Experience and Stress Scale; Harrell, 1996) was assessed at W1, W2, and W4. Lifetime LGB victimization (D’Augelli et al., 2008) was assessed at W1. Outcome Variables. Depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory for Youth; Beck, 1996) and suicidal ideation (Positive and Negative Suicide Inventory; Muehlenkamp et al., 2005) were assessed W1-W4. Control Variables: Sex, race, sexual identity, age, data collection site, and SES.

Linear LGC and parallel process models were estimated with Mplus 8. Racial discrimination, depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation declined over time (Table 2). There were significant interactions between the intercept of racial discrimination and LGB victimization for the intercept (b=0.15, p<0.05) and slope (b=-0.08, p<0.05) of depressive symptoms. Simple slope analyses for the intercept of depressive symptoms showed that the association between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms was twice as strong at high levels (b = 0.39, p<0.001) than at low levels (b=0.17, p<0.05) of LGB victimization. For the slope of depressive symptoms, at high levels of LGB victimization, (b=-0.15, p<0.05) greater racial discrimination was associated with a steeper decline in depressive symptoms; the slope did not change at low levels of LGB victimization (b=0.03, p=0.43). Racial discrimination (b=0.19, p<0.05) and LGB victimization (b=0.18, p<0.01) were independently associated with baseline suicidal ideation.

The results for depressive symptoms align with the multiplicative hypothesis and suggest that SMYoC who experience racial discrimination and LGB victimization are at greater risk for higher levels of depressive symptoms and more rapid declines in symptomology. The results for suicidal ideation were consistent with the additive hypothesis: racial discrimination and LGB victimization were distinct risk factors for greater suicidal ideation. This study provides evidence of the intersection of minority stressors for SMYoC and implications for their mental health. Mitigating minority stressors provides an avenue for SMYoC to thrive.

Authors

• Allen Mallory, Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Stephen T Russell, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author