Professor Laurie Drabble, School of Social Work, recently received a $175,000 grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to explore the positive impact of the legal recognition of same-sex marriage on sexual minority women’s health. Previous research has found strong associations between supportive policies, such as marriage recognition, and improved health outcomes among sexual minorities, however, gaps in understanding specific psycho-social factors remain.

In collaboration with Dr. Karen Trocki, Alcohol Research Group, the research team expects that their study will substantially move forward the fields of women’s health and substance use, specifically adding to the knowledge of how individual, interpersonal, and societal factors contribute to health disparities among women, including differences by race/ethnicity and sexual identity.

Such knowledge will support the development of culturally appropriate prevention and intervention strategies, as well as policies to reduce health disparities among women.

The team will draw on minority stress, intersectionality, and social-ecological frameworks and a mixed-methods research design to identify and assess factors that underlie the effect of marriage recognition on health and to examine relationships between these factors and hazardous drinking, depression, and poor general health. The project runs from September 2017 to May 2019.