Sexual and behavioral health disparities among African American sexual minority men and women

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Ethn Health
• Personal Author:
  Pérez, Ashley E. ; Gamarel, Kristi E. ; van den Berg, Jacob J. ; Operario, Don
• Description:
  Introduction
  
  Sexual and behavioral health disparities have been consistently demonstrated between African American and White adults and between sexual minority and heterosexual communities in the United States; however, few studies using nationally representative samples have examined disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual adults within African American populations. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of sexual and behavioral health outcomes between sexual minority and heterosexual African American adults and to examine whether there were different patterns of disparities for African American sexual minority men and women, respectively.
  
  Methods
  
  We analyzed data from 4,502 African American adults who participated in the 2001 to 2015 waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Using multivariable analyses, we examined differences in HIV, sexually transmitted infections, mental health, and substance use among African American sexual minority and heterosexual men and women.
  
  Results
  
  After adjusting for sociodemographic variables, African American sexual minority men had significantly higher odds of HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and poor mental health compared to their heterosexual male counterparts, whereas African American sexual minority women had significantly higher odds of Hepatitis C, poor mental health, and substance use compared to their heterosexual female counterparts.
  
  Conclusions
  
  These findings demonstrate notable sexual orientation disparities among African American adults. Disparities persisted beyond the role of sociodemographic factors, suggesting that further research utilizing an intersectional approach is warranted to understand the social determinants of adverse health outcomes among African American sexual minority men and women.
  
  
• Subjects:
  African American Article Gender Health Disparities Sexual Minority USA
• Source:
  Ethn Health. 25(5):653-664
• Pubmed ID:
  29502446
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC6120809
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  P2C HD041020/HD/NICHD NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U01 PS005117/PS/NCHHSTP CDC HHSUnited States/ ; U01PS005117/ACL/ACL HHSUnited States/ ; U24 AA022000/AA/NIAAA NIH HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  25
• Issue:
  5
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:e1dbb92830e4d02718cd167e0e180eca49528ff76f26ccb29725952088ef8540
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/58682/cdc_58682_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 354.23 KB ]