Measuring Sexual Minority Status Among Women Drug Users

描述(由调查员提供)：估计有20%-30%的女性 吸毒者是女同性恋者、双性恋者或其他与女性发生性关系的女性(WSWs)。 与WSW吸毒者的同性行为是 性工作或监禁，最近关于WSW注射器的人种学研究表明 西南威尔士州的大多数吸毒者可以被视为“性少数群体”，这 我们将同性取向定义为女性的一个重要方面 他们的社交生活。性少数群体的地位似乎会影响健康， 与健康相关的行为，以及健康和药物治疗服务的经验 在重要方面加强对女性吸毒者的保护。还需要更多的研究来 准确地确定性少数群体的状况可能会如何使健康复杂化 妇女中非法药物使用的后果，特别是设计和 评估旨在缩小性少数群体之间健康差距的干预措施 和其他吸毒的女性。然而，这类研究首先需要 制定有效和有效的性少数群体地位衡量标准 对女性吸毒者来说是可靠的。这将通过以下方式实现：1)增加我们的 通过二手资料了解性少数群体地位的构成要素 对最近在纽约对女性戒毒者进行的人种学研究的分析 和波士顿(收集了对78名西南威尔士州受试者的260次深度访谈)；2) 利用这些分析来开发基于经验的性行为测量方法 少数群体地位；以及3)通过试点初步确认这些措施 对120名女性吸毒者(包括估计24-36名性少数群体)的调查 在纽约市。拟议的研究直接涉及最近的建议 医学研究所女同性恋者健康研究优先事项委员会 开发改进的、多维的性取向测量方法 并适用于低收入和少数民族妇女，特别注意 女同性恋中的非法药物使用及其后遗症。为此，这一点 拟议的R03研究将制定将用于性少数地位的衡量标准 在今后针对女性吸毒者的流行病学和卫生服务研究中。

DESCRIPTION (provided by investigator): An estimated 20-30 percent of women drug users are lesbian, bisexual or other women who have sex with women (WSWs). Contrary to theories that WSW drug users' same-sex behavior is a function of sex work or incarceration, recent ethnographic work on WSW injectors suggests that a majority of WSW drug users can be considered "sexual minorities," which we define as women for whom same-sex orientation is an important aspect of their social lives. Sexual minority status appears to affect health, health-related behaviors, and the health and drug treatment service experiences of women drug users in important ways. Additional research is needed to determine precisely how sexual minority status may complicate the health consequences of illicit drug use among women, and especially to design and evaluate interventions to reduce disparities in health between sexual minority and other drug-using women. Research of this sort, however, will first require the development of measures of sexual minority status that are valid and reliable for women drug users. This will be accomplished by: 1) increasing our understanding of the components of sexual minority status via secondary analysis of a recently-concluded ethnographic study of women lDUs in New York and Boston (which collected 260 in-depth interviews with 78 WSW subjects); 2) using these analyses to develop empirically-grounded measures of sexual minority status; and 3) preliminary validation of these measures via a pilot survey of 120 women drug users (including an estimated 24-36 sexual minorities) in New York City. The proposed study directly addresses recent recommendations by the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Lesbian Health Research Priorities that improved, multi-dimensional measures of sexual orientation be developed and applied to low-income and ethnic minority women, with specific attention to illicit drug use and its sequelae among lesbians. Towards this end, this proposed R03 study will develop measures of sexual minority status to be used in future epidemiological and health services research among women drug users.