Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute (MPSI) Research Colloquium Series

Sexual and Gender Diverse Health Disparities: Using National Data to Examine Intersecting Experiences

Presenter: Ryan J. Watson, PhD, Associate Professor, Human Development & Family Sciences, University of Connecticut

Dr. Ryan Watson from the University of Connecticut will share his ongoing research by reviewing recent findings from contemporary data using his large national sample (N=17,620) of sexual and gender diverse youth (13-17 years of age) and longitudinal national sample of 300 Black and Latinx men who have sex with men. He will discuss preliminary analyses using novel methodologies (i.e., Exhaustive Chi Squared Automatic Interaction Detection) and discuss the emerging issues of mischievous and fraudulent responses now ubiquitous in online data collection. Using these datasets with attention to intersecting social positions that include sexual, gender, racial, and ethnic identities, Dr. Watson will discuss which groups of sexual and gender diverse youth share disproportionate burdens of health behaviors.