Doctoral Dissertation Research: Minority Population Experiences of Healthcare

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Title: Minority Population Experiences of HealthcareThis project will analyze the healthcare experiences and needs of racially diverse sexual and gender identity minorities (SGMs) patients within two different healthcare organizations to reveal factors that shape SGM decisions about seeking or delaying access to healthcare. By doing so, this project will bridge urgent gaps in our knowledge about how social forces influence SGM access to healthcare, as well as contribute a theoretical model to help future scholars understand how organizations impact healthcare use. Insight generated by this project will address the important social problems of discrimination and inequality within healthcare by helping to decrease barriers to care for minority populations at high risk of underutilization and poor health. Compared to heterosexuals, SGMs are in poorer health as indicated by a wide variety of measures and at every stage of the lifecourse?yet SGMs are significantly less likely to access healthcare. Although one primary strategy for addressing SGMs' underutilization in the U.S. has been the creation of SGM healthcare organizations, how different organizational contexts influence SGM healthcare experiences and use has yet to be empirically examined. This project uses interviews with patients and providers as well as ethnographic observation at two healthcare organizations in New York City: one specialized for SGMs and one designed for the general population. Questions driving the project include: why do diverse SGMs delay seeking healthcare? How do they make decisions about care? What do diverse SGMs understand to be their specific needs within different health settings? And (how) do organizational factors and contexts shape diverse SGM patients' experiences and healthcare decisions? Gathering and analyzing three data sources: patient perspectives, provider perspectives, and direct observation will allow for triangulation during analysis, which will help ensure robust findings about how individual and organizational factors come together to influence minority experiences of and decisions about care.