Future Directions for Research on Structural Stigma and LGBT Health Disparities

Join us for a discussion with Mark Hatzenbuehler, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Dr. Hatzenbuehler's research examines how structural forms of stigma, including social policies, increase risk for adverse health outcomes among members of socially disadvantaged populations, with a particular focus on lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals. Dr. Hatzenbuehler has published over 115 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. His work has been continuously funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the William T. Grant Foundation.

Psychological research has made significant advancements in the study of stigma but has tended to focus almost exclusively on individual and interpersonal stigma processes to the exclusion of structural factors that promulgate stigma. To address this knowledge gap, researchers have expanded the stigma construct to consider how broader, macrosocial forms of stigma—what I call structural stigma—also disadvantage stigmatized individuals, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations. In this talk, I will briefly define the construct of structural stigma and describe illustrative examples of recent research documenting the consequences of structural stigma for LGBT health disparities. I will end the talk with a discussion of future research that is needed to advance our understanding of how structural stigma operates to shape population health inequities.