Symposia
Culture / Ethnicity / Race
Sylvanna M. Vargas, M.P.H., Ph.D.
UCLA
Los Angeles, California
Jinshu Cui, PhD
Senior Data Scientist
Cigna
Santa Monica, California
Anna S. Lau, Ph.D.
Professor
UCLA
Los Angeles, California
Stanley J. Huey, PhD
Associate Professor
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Jeanne Miranda, PhD
Distinguished Professor Emeritus
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA
Bowen Chung, MD
Associate professor
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA
Some initial work suggests that living in an ethnic enclave may be protective against experiencing racism (English et al., 2014; Viruell-Fuentes, 2007), which is associated with poor mental health outcomes (Pascoe & Richman, 2009). However, it is not clear whether ethnic enclaves may lose their protective shield for sexual minority people of color (SM-POC), who experience both heterosexism and racism (Gray, Mendelsohn, & Omoto, 2015). The current cross-sectional study relied on an ethnically diverse sample of sexual minority adults (N=136) who completed a survey as part of a larger clinical trial. Participants resided in Los Angeles and New Orleans. Their addresses were geotagged reflecting their neighborhood ethnic composition based on using tract-level data from the 2010 U.S. Census. Participants reported their demographic characteristics and completed the two-stage Everyday Discrimination Scale to report their experiences with interpersonal discrimination. Results indicate that living in a neighborhood with higher co-ethnic density predicted lower overall frequency rates of discrimination, β=-.04, p< .05. However, living in neighborhoods with higher co-ethnic density also increased participants’ risk of experiencing dual or intersectional racism and heterosexism, in comparison to only racism or only heterosexism (X2(6, N=136)=34.94, p< .01; OR for both=1.02, 95% CI [.96, .99]). These findings suggest that while living in co-ethnic neighborhoods may reduce the chances that ethnically diverse sexual minority adults experience discrimination, doing so also increases their chances of experiencing dual or intersectional discrimination. Prior studies have shown that, compared to people who report a single type of discrimination, those who experience dual and intersectional discrimination exhibit heightened risk for mental health problems (Vargas, Huey & Miranda, 2020). Interventions that buffer against the impact of intersectional discrimination are needed, and may be especially important to situate within settings where people are likely to experience intersectional stress.