Many adolescents of the LGBTQ community face aggressive bullying and discrimination from their peers, and lots of it.
DSU associate professor of sociology Charles Cange is receiving federal funding to examine some possible consequences.
Cange believes those experiences may lead to higher rates of psychological health issues as well as higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases. The National Institutes of Health awarded Cange two grants for a total of $438,000 to conduct a study and fill that gap in research about men’s sexual health.
“Those individuals who have been exposed to more trauma, more intense trauma, more persistent trauma, are more at risk to develop traumatic-like symptoms,” Cange said. “There’s obviously a large literature on mental health among men that have sex with men, so this would be consistent with some of those finding which have been done kind of separately from trying to prevent HIV or STI’s.”
The study will be done in two parts – Cange will survey 300 gay and bisexual men on their sexual habits, substance use, and mental health. But that is only one part. He will then meet one-on-one with around 20 of those men to then study the effects of interventions and how their behaviors and habits change after-the-fact.
“When folks have a traumatic experience that breaks down some of their walls, so to speak, or what would be considered normal boundaries, they’re going to take more risks, more risky behaviors, which could include drugs and alcohol and sexual behaviors that are risky, also including self-harm,” Cange said.
Cange is partnering with AIDS Delaware and the Delaware HIV Consortium to connect with eligible participants, and will rely on snowball sampling, from there, where those originally surveyed will refer future subjects to the study.
He expects to have results of the study by spring next year
