$3.6 million grant awarded to Ohio State professor for research on impact of microaggressions on bisexual and pansexual adolescents

Emma Bush
Fri, 24 Jan 2025 04:39:58 +0000
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Christina Dyar serves as the project leader and principal investigator for this research. Credit: Courtesy of Christina Dyar

A lack of specialized research on bisexual and pansexual individuals might be responsible for health disparities among patients of that group. Now, one Ohio State researcher is working to change that.

Christina Dyar, assistant professor at the College of Nursing, and her co-investigators have received a $3.6 million five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to study how microaggressions negatively impact this subset of minority youth.?

The research project is titled “Bisexual Adolescents’ and Young Adults’ Risk for Depression and Suicidal Ideation: Developmental Trajectories, Risk and Protective Factors and Underlying Mechanisms.”?

Dyar has spent the past decade researching the distinct stigma and microaggressions bisexual and pansexual individuals face, including stereotypes that portray them as unsure of their sexual identity or overly promiscuous, she said.?

“These unique types of microaggressions have been associated with more anxiety and more depression among this group,” Dyar said

Brian Feinstein, principal investigator and an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Rosalind Franklin University, said in an email this project will shed much-needed light on a historically under-researched demographic.

“This grant not only provides us with the resources we need to be able to conduct this important research, but it also demonstrates the [National Institute of Mental Health’s] recognition of the health disparities affecting bi+ people and the need to better understand their experiences to inform prevention and intervention efforts,” Feinstein said.

The research team also includes co-investigators Paz Galupo from Washington University in St. Louis and Ethan Mereish from University of Maryland, according to Ohio State News.?

Dyar said the study will include transgender and gender-diverse individuals and also account for how bisexual and pansexual people of color experience discrimination differently. She noted the research will explicitly examine how these intersecting identities impact patients’ exposure to social stigma.

“My goal in this work is to identify mechanisms and places where we can intervene because we know, unfortunately, stigma isn’t going away anytime soon,” Dyar said.?

When it comes to methodology, Dyar and her research team will ask 500 participants to complete surveys every six months for roughly two and a half years, according to Ohio State News.

Dyar said the survey will include questions such as, “How often in the past six months has somebody dismissed your bisexual or pansexual identity?”

Dyar said her interest in researching bisexual and pansexual individuals stemmed from the lack of attention given to their experiences in existing LGBTQ+ health research, which often focuses on gay men and — to a lesser extent — lesbian women, despite bisexual and pansexual people making up a significant portion of the LGBTQ+ population.?

“I really thought it was problematic that this population was being ignored,” Dyer said. “As I started doing research, more and more studies started coming out demonstrating that health disparities were a lot worse for bisexuals as well.”?

The bisexual population is at a higher risk of suicide compared to its heterosexual, gay and lesbian counterparts, according to the American Psychiatric Association.?

Feinstein said the project’s findings are intended “to inform the development of interventions to improve bi+ youth’s mental health,” with the ultimate goal of providing more effective care for those struggling with depression and/or suicidal ideation.?

“We know very little about how these experiences unfold over the course of development, and how they differ among subgroups of bi+ youth with additional marginalized identities (e.g., bi+ youth of color, bi+ transgender and nonbinary youth),” Feinstein said. “This research will help us to understand how these unique stressors impact mental health, protective factors that buffer their negative consequences, and critical periods in development when bi+ youth are most impacted.”

Overall, Dyar said the most rewarding aspect of her career is hearing from bisexual and pansexual people directly, especially when they make important self-discoveries or express an interest in LGBTQ+ research as an academic field.?

“That for me is really, really meaningful,” Dyar said.

This article was updated Jan. 24 at 11:33 a.m. and 1:06 p.m. to clarify the study’s focus on microaggressions, Brian Feinstein’s position as principal investigator and Paz Galupo’s position at Washington University in St. Louis.