Healthcare Provider and Community Adult Knowledge and Beliefs about Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
type: CreativeWork
description: Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth face discrimination and health/healthcare disparities in American society (Mustanski, Birkett, Greene, Hatzenbuehler, & Newcomb, 2014a). Researchers have demonstrated connections between discriminatory beliefs (e.g., homophobia), beliefs about environmental etiology of SGM, and SGM moral condemnation among United States adults (Wood & Bartkowski, 2004). Previous research has not established whether pediatric healthcare providers share attitudes and beliefs with other U.S. adults. To address SGM youth’s healthcare disparities, one important step is to understand pediatric healthcare providers’ SGM-specific attitudes and beliefs, what factors influence providers’ beliefs, and how providers’ beliefs differ from the greater community. Our study surveyed a national sample of community adults (n=258) and a sample of pediatric healthcare providers (n=103). The primary aim was to validate three novel measures in both samples: a measure assessing knowledge about sexual minority health risks, a measure assessing SGM etiology beliefs, and a measure assessing moral condemnation of SGM identities. We expected etiology beliefs and moral condemnation to contain separate sexual minority (SM) and gender minority (GM) factors when subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. This study’s secondary and tertiary aims examined associations between SM knowledge, SGM etiology beliefs, moral condemnation, and homophobia in our community adult and pediatric healthcare provider samples. We anticipated healthcare providers would demonstrate more SM health risk knowledge, more biological etiology beliefs, and less moral condemnation. Our measures demonstrated good psychometric properties. Contrary to expectations, the etiology and moral condemnation measures were unidimensional for all SGM behaviors and identities. Providers demonstrated more SM health risk knowledge than community adults, but this knowledge was not statistically explained b…
abstract: Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth face discrimination and health/healthcare disparities in American society (Mustanski, Birkett, Greene, Hatzenbuehler, & Newcomb, 2014a). Researchers have demonstrated connections between discriminatory beliefs (e.g., homophobia), beliefs about environmental etiology of SGM, and SGM moral condemnation among United States adults (Wood & Bartkowski, 2004). Previous research has not established whether pediatric healthcare providers share attitudes and beliefs with other U.S. adults. To address SGM youth’s healthcare disparities, one important step is to understand pediatric healthcare providers’ SGM-specific attitudes and beliefs, what factors influence providers’ beliefs, and how providers’ beliefs differ from the greater community. Our study surveyed a national sample of community adults (n=258) and a sample of pediatric healthcare providers (n=103). The primary aim was to validate three novel measures in both samples: a measure assessing knowledge about sexual minority health risks, a measure assessing SGM etiology beliefs, and a measure assessing moral condemnation of SGM identities. We expected etiology beliefs and moral condemnation to contain separate sexual minority (SM) and gender minority (GM) factors when subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. This study’s secondary and tertiary aims examined associations between SM knowledge, SGM etiology beliefs, moral condemnation, and homophobia in our community adult and pediatric healthcare provider samples. We anticipated healthcare providers would demonstrate more SM health risk knowledge, more biological etiology beliefs, and less moral condemnation. Our measures demonstrated good psychometric properties. Contrary to expectations, the etiology and moral condemnation measures were unidimensional for all SGM behaviors and identities. Providers demonstrated more SM health risk knowledge than community adults, but this knowledge was not statistically explained b…
author: McDonald, Wade Compton
language: en
keywords: Adolescent, Attitude of Health Personnel, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Reproductive Health, Sexual and Gender Minorities, Sexual Health
date published: 2020-09-01T21:08:20Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:52:13Z
provider: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2152.5/8796