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Evaluation ViewAttendees 5

Mental Health Disparities
Symposia

Symposium 131 - Synthesizing Stigma Research: Leveraging Systematic Review as a Tool to Identify and Address Mental Health Disparities

Sunday, November 17, 2024
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM EST
Location: Franklin 9, Level 4, Downtown Marriott
CE: 1.5

Keywords: Stigma, Mental Health Disparities, Vulnerable Populations
Level of Familiarity: Basic to moderate
Recommended Readings: Hatzenbuehler, M. L. (2009). How does sexual minority stigma “get under the skin”? A psychological mediation framework. Psychological Bulletin, 135(5), 707–730. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016441,   Price, M. A., & Hollinsaid, N. L. (2022). Future directions in mental health treatment with stigmatized youth. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 51(5), 810–825. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2022.2109652,   Link, B. G., & Phelan, J. C. (2001). Conceptualizing stigma. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 363–385. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.363,   Dworkin, E. R., & Weaver, T. L. (2021). The impact of sociocultural contexts on mental health following sexual violence: A conceptual model. Psychology of Violence, 11(5), 476–487. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000350,   Burton, C. L., Wang, K., & Pachankis, J. E. (2018). Does getting stigma under the skin make it thinner? Emotion regulation as a stress-contingent mediator of stigma and mental health. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(4), 590–600. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702618755321

Stigma—the co-occurrence of labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination in a context of unequal power—represents a fundamental cause of mental health disparities because of its pernicious and pervasive effects on various life domains (Link & Phelan, 2001). Whereas fundamental cause theory suggests that stigma manifests at multiple levels, undermines multiple mental health outcomes, and affects multiple socially marginalized populations, the prevailing approach to the study of stigma has focused on examining the effects of stigma at a single level, on a single outcome, and among a single stigmatized group (Hatzenbuehler et al., 2013). Within an increasingly stigmatizing sociopolitical context for many socially marginalized groups in the United States, more comprehensive methods—including systematic reviews—are needed to conceptualize understudied forms of stigma, to understand how stigma “gets under the skin” to confer elevated risk for psychopathology, and to inform intervention efforts to address stigma and its mental health sequelae.To this end, our symposium—led by interdisciplinary scholars at varying career stages—features four studies leveraging the science of systematic review as a tool to advance the study of stigma. The first study synthesizes emerging research quantifying the causes and consequences of the stigma surrounding sexual violence in a programmatic effort to organize this nascent field of scholarship. The second study highlights mounting empirical support for novel cognitive, social, affective, relational, and biological processes mediating well-established associations between stigma and adverse mental health outcomes among sexual minority (e.g., lesbian, gay, and bisexual) individuals. The third study extends these findings to a wider range of individuals with stigmatized social identities (e.g., race/ethnicity) and statuses (e.g., weight), with a particular focus on emotion processing mechanisms. Finally, the fourth study distills evidence-based strategies and skills for addressing transphobia in schools and for supporting transgender students. Taken together, these studies underscore the multifaceted nature of stigma and provide some of the strongest evidence to date for its fundamental role in shaping and maintaining mental health disparities at the population level. Findings also provide a framework for intervening on stigma and on the mechanistic pathways through which it disrupts psychosocial wellbeing.  After these four talks, our discussant will draw on his extensive experience studying the role of stigma in shaping population health inequalities to offer future directions for expanding the study of stigma. The following topics will be discussed: (1) applying innovative meta-analytic methods to quantify the overall magnitude of the direct and indirect effects linking stigma to psychopathology identified in this symposium; (2) adapting existing cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) interventions for stigmatized populations to target novel biopsychosocial mechanisms at the individual level; and (3) coupling community engagement and advocacy to develop multilevel interventions that also address stigma at the societal level.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this session, the learner will be able to:
  1. Explain 3 ways in which stigma impacts psychological wellbeing and recovery among survivors of sexual violence.
  2. Describe 3 emotion processes contributing to stigmatized individuals’ risk for internalizing symptoms.
  3. Identify 5 strategies for supporting transgender students in schools.
  4. Characterize 3 universal risk factors linking stigma to sexual minorities' elevated risk for adverse mental health outcomes.
  5. Utilize cognitive-behavioral therapy principles to address psychological processes disrupted by stigma.

Presentations:

  • 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM EST
    (SYM 131) How Does Sexual Minority Stigma “get Under the Skin?”: A Systematic Review and 15-year Update on the Psychological Mediation Framework

    Speaker: Nathan L. Hollinsaid, B.S. (he/him/his) – Department of Psychology, Harvard University

    Co-author: Mark Hatzenbuehler, Ph.D. – Harvard University

  • 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM EST
    (SYM 131) Stigma and Emotion Processing: A Systematic Review

    Speaker: Rachel Martino, B.S. – Harvard University

    Co-author: Carrie Wade, MLIS (she/her/hers) – Countway Library, Harvard Medical School

    Co-author: Mark Hatzenbuehler, Ph.D. – Harvard University

  • 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM EST
    (SYM 131) The Psychosocial Consequences of Sexual Violence Stigma: A Scoping Review

    Speaker: Emily J. Mellen, M.A. (she/her/hers) – Harvard University

    Co-author: Do Yeon Kim, BA (she/her/hers) – Department of Psychology, Harvard University

    Co-author: Emma Edenbaum, BA – Florida State University

    Co-author: Jacqueline Cellini, MLIS, MPH (she/her/hers) – Countway Library, Harvard Medical School

    Co-author: Mark Hatzenbuehler, Ph.D. – Harvard University

  • 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM EST
    (SYM 131) Systematic Review: Best Practices for Supporting Transgender Youth in Schools

    Speaker: Patrick Mulkern, MSW (they/them/theirs) – Boston College

    Co-author: August Wei, B.S. – National Institute of Mental Health

    Co-author: Maggi Price, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) – Boston College

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