A systematic review of social stress and mental health among transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States

By S. Valentine, Jillian C. Shipherd. Clinical Psychology Review, 2018

611 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) populations, including those who do not identify with gender binary constructs (man or woman) are increasingly recognized in health care settings. Research on the health of TGNC people is growing, and disparities are often noted. In this review, we examine 77 studies published between January 1, 1997 and March 22, 2017 which reported mental health outcomes in TGNC populations to (a) characterize what is known about mental health outcomes and (b) describe what gaps persist in this literature. In general, depressive symptoms, suicidality, interpersonal trauma exposure, substance use disorders, anxiety, and general distress have been consistently elevated among TGNC adults. We also used the minority stress model as a framework for summarizing existing literature. While no studies included all elements of the Minority Stress Model, this summary gives an overview of which studies have looked at each element. Findings suggest that TGNC people are exposed to a variety of social stressors, including stigma, discrimination, and bias events that contribute to mental health problems. Social support, community connectedness, and effective coping strategies appear beneficial. We argue that routine collection of gender identity data could advance our understanding mental health risk and resilience factors among TGNC populations.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9708efeb497182c9fd5982503b7a2cac526dba80

How researchers see this paper

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In Clinical Psychology

1. Michael Michaelides
2. Nora D. Volkow
3. R. Baler

In Social Psychology

1. Michael Michaelides
2. Nora D. Volkow
3. R. Baler

Citations in the corpus

• The Neuroscience of Drug Reward and Addiction. (2019, positive): “Epidemiological studies have consistently recognized that environments with a high level of social stressors and poor social support (16, 48, 50, 330) along with easy accessibility to drugs (115, 124, 125) and lack of alternative reinforcers (180) lead to an elevated risk for drug experimentation…”