Ethnic identity commitment as a moderator for perceived access to health care among Latinx sexual minority men

OBJECTIVE

Gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority men (SMM) face more barriers to accessing health care compared to other men. In comparison to other SMM populations, Latinx SMM (LSMM) report having less access to health care. The purpose of the present study is to elucidate how theorized environmental-societal-level (i.e., immigration status, education level, and income level), community-interpersonal-level (i.e., social support and neighborhood collective efficacy [NCE]), and social-cognitive-behavioral-level factors (i.e., age, heterosexual self-presentation [HSP], sexual identity commitment, sexual identity exploration [SIE], and ethnic identity commitment [EIC]) may relate with perceived access to health care (PATHC) in a sample of 478 LSMM.

METHOD

We conducted a hierarchical regression analysis examining the hypothesized predictors of PATHC, as well as EIC as a moderator of the direct association between predictors and PATHC. We hypothesized that Latinx EIC would moderate relations between the aforementioned multilevel factors and PATHC.

RESULTS

LSMM perceived greater access to care when indicating the following: higher education level, more NCE, more HSP, more SIE, and more EIC. Latinx EIC acted as a moderator of four predictors of PATHC, including education, NCE, HSP, and SIE.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings inform outreach interventions of researchers and health care providers about psychosocial and cultural barriers and facilitators of health care access. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Just data representation for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders: A critical review of systemic Indigenous erasure in census and recommendations for psychologists

The decennial Census survey marks the emergence of federal classifications of race and ethnicity by which the U.S. government has historically conflated Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI, hereafter) as "Asian or Pacific Islander." This conflation amplifies health injustices and inequities of NHPIs through multiple mechanisms because it masks the complex and heterogeneous experiences of NHPIs, whose positions and relations with the settler state are qualitatively and substantially distinct from Asian Americans. This critical review examines federal documents and research to examine how the panethnic categorizations are often sustained through scientific inquiry and methodologies. We found that self-determination and self-identification for NHPIs are impeded by settler-colonial relations between U.S. colonization of parts of Oceania (e.g., Hawai'i, Sāmoa, Fiji, and Guam) and the forcefully imposed categorization that continues to be in use to legitimize the domination of Indigenous Peoples through race misclassification. Specifically, Census data collection fails to capture accurate and reliable data due to serious methodological limitations. These implications for psychological research compel us to make several recommendations for psychologists: (1) engage with NHPI community partners in all research processes; (2) critically examine Census research design and consider oversampling NHPI households to ensure just data representation; (3) meaningfully engage when, whether and how to aggregate Asian Americans with NHPIs; and (4) use Indigeneity as a critical framework.