Minority Stress in Relation to Biological Outcomes Among Sexual and Gender Minority People: a Systematic Review and Update

Here we present an updated systematic review identifying studies published 2019-2024, since our prior systematic review in 2020, that examine the association between minority stress and a biological outcome among sexual and gender minority (SGM) people. Pubmed, Web of Science, and Embase were queried to identify studies that examined an association between minority stress (including prejudice events and conditions, anticipation of rejection and discrimination, concealment or disclosure of SGM identity(ies), internalized stigma, or structural stigma) and a biological health outcome among SGM people. Included studies were coded for methodological approaches, study population, minority stress measure, biological outcomes, count of overall analyses, and count of analyses where an association was detected. Fifty-nine studies met inclusion criteria and included a total of 391 analyses between an element of minority stress and a biological outcome, among which 38% of analyses detected an association (44% detected this association when study outliers were removed). All elements of minority stress demonstrated associations with outcomes: multicomponent measures, prejudice events and conditions, and structural stigma demonstrated the highest proportion of associations. Associations with minority stress were detected for general physical health, sleep, immune, cardiovascular, metabolic, hormonal, brain health, allostatic load, epigenetic and transcriptional regulation. The highest proportion of associations were detected among sleep, immune, cardiovascular, and hormonal outcomes. These studies evidence associations between minority stress and biological outcomes among gender minority people in addition to evidence among sexual minority people. Future research should consider increasing rigor in methodology and expanding our understanding of moderators and mediators of these relationships.