IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i23p12536-d690062.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trans Adults Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: Quality of Life, Pandemic Impact, and Vaccine Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Vern Harner

    (School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105, USA)

  • Ascher K. Munion

    (Department of Psychology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858, USA)

  • Jama Shelton

    (Silberman School of Social Work, City University of New York, New York, NY 10065, USA)

Abstract

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately impacting marginalized communities, such as Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), disabled individuals, and transgender/nonbinary (i.e., trans) individuals. As trans individuals may be multiply marginalized, it is necessary to examine within group differences among trans individuals of different genders, races, socioeconomic statuses, and abilities. This study examines the following research questions: (1) What is the quality of life of trans adults during the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) How does the self-reported impact of the pandemic vary across groups within the trans community? (3) What preferences do trans adults have regarding receiving a COVID-19 vaccine? Survey data were collected in August/September of 2020. Among a sample of 449 trans adults, findings suggest that the profound impact of the pandemic was not consistent across all community members. Being a woman predicted a higher self-reported impact of the pandemic while being a masc(uline) white respondent tended to predict a lower impact of the pandemic. Higher income was associated with a higher quality of life and being a disabled white respondent predicted a lower quality of life. The majority (99%) of the sample reported wanting to receive a COVID-19 vaccine should one become available. Implications for practice include the importance of considering the holistic experiences of clients and community members, as opposed to having homogenized perspectives of even subsets of the trans community. Future research related to barriers faced when attempting to access a vaccine is needed to inform future public health responses to epidemics/pandemics impacting this community.

Suggested Citation

  • Vern Harner & Ascher K. Munion & Jama Shelton, 2021. "Trans Adults Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: Quality of Life, Pandemic Impact, and Vaccine Preferences," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(23), pages 1-17, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:23:p:12536-:d:690062
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/23/12536/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/23/12536/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. van Buuren, Stef & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, Karin, 2011. "mice: Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 45(i03).
    2. Julianne Holt-Lunstad & Timothy B Smith & J Bradley Layton, 2010. "Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-1, July.
    3. Kawachi, I. & Kennedy, B.P. & Glass, R., 1999. "Social capital and self-rated health: A contextual analysis," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 89(8), pages 1187-1193.
    4. Angela Matijczak & Jennifer W. Applebaum & Shanna K. Kattari & Shelby E. McDonald, 2021. "Social Support and Attachment to Pets Moderate the Association between Sexual and Gender Minority Status and the Likelihood of Delaying or Avoiding COVID-19 Testing," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-15, August.
    5. Kennedy, Bruce P. & Kawachi, Ichiro & Prothrow-Stith, Deborah & Lochner, Kimberly & Gupta, Vanita, 1998. "Social capital, income inequality, and firearm violent crime," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 7-17, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ball, Kylie & Cleland, Verity J. & Timperio, Anna F. & Salmon, Jo & Giles-Corti, Billie & Crawford, David A., 2010. "Love thy neighbour? Associations of social capital and crime with physical activity amongst women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 807-814, August.
    2. Benjamin Kaveladze & Allison Diamond Altman & Meike Niederhausen & Jennifer M Loftis & Alan R Teo, 2022. "Social relationship quality, depression and inflammation: A cross-cultural longitudinal study in the United States and Tokyo, Japan," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 68(2), pages 253-263, March.
    3. Bjornstrom, Eileen E.S., 2011. "The neighborhood context of relative position, trust, and self-rated health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 42-49, July.
    4. Poortinga, Wouter, 2006. "Social relations or social capital? Individual and community health effects of bonding social capital," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 255-270, July.
    5. Jennifer M. Mellor & Jeffrey Milyo, 2003. "State Social Capital and Individual Health Status," Working Papers 0310, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    6. Mitchell, Andrew David & Bossert, Thomas J., 2007. "Measuring dimensions of social capital: Evidence from surveys in poor communities in Nicaragua," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 50-63, January.
    7. Khawaja, Marwan & Abdulrahim, Sawsan & Soweid, Rima A.Afifi. & Karam, Dima, 2006. "Distrust, social fragmentation and adolescents' health in the outer city: Beirut and beyond," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 1304-1315, September.
    8. Mohseni, Mohabbat & Lindstrom, Martin, 2007. "Social capital, trust in the health-care system and self-rated health: The role of access to health care in a population-based study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(7), pages 1373-1383, April.
    9. Noémi Kreif & Richard Grieve & Iván Díaz & David Harrison, 2015. "Evaluation of the Effect of a Continuous Treatment: A Machine Learning Approach with an Application to Treatment for Traumatic Brain Injury," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(9), pages 1213-1228, September.
    10. Abhilash Bandam & Eedris Busari & Chloi Syranidou & Jochen Linssen & Detlef Stolten, 2022. "Classification of Building Types in Germany: A Data-Driven Modeling Approach," Data, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-23, April.
    11. Maria Alzira Pimenta Dinis & Helder Fernando Pedrosa Sousa & Andreia de Moura & Lilian M. F. Viterbo & Ricardo J. Pinto, 2019. "Health Behaviors as a Mediator of the Association Between Interpersonal Relationships and Physical Health in a Workplace Context," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-9, July.
    12. Kumar, Kaushalendra & Shukla, Ankita & Singh, Abhishek & Ram, Faujdar & Kowal, Paul, 2016. "Association between wealth and health among older adults in rural China and India," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 43-52.
    13. Evans-Polce, Rebecca J. & Staff, Jeremy & Maggs, Jennifer L., 2016. "Alcohol abstention in early adulthood and premature mortality: Do early life factors, social support, and health explain this association?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 71-79.
    14. Boonstra Philip S. & Little Roderick J.A. & West Brady T. & Andridge Rebecca R. & Alvarado-Leiton Fernanda, 2021. "A Simulation Study of Diagnostics for Selection Bias," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 37(3), pages 751-769, September.
    15. Hanibuchi, Tomoya & Murata, Yohei & Ichida, Yukinobu & Hirai, Hiroshi & Kawachi, Ichiro & Kondo, Katsunori, 2012. "Place-specific constructs of social capital and their possible associations to health: A Japanese case study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 225-232.
    16. Santini, Ziggi Ivan & Jose, Paul E. & Koyanagi, Ai & Meilstrup, Charlotte & Nielsen, Line & Madsen, Katrine R. & Koushede, Vibeke, 2020. "Formal social participation protects physical health through enhanced mental health: A longitudinal mediation analysis using three consecutive waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in E," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    17. Ruta Clair & Maya Gordon & Matthew Kroon & Carolyn Reilly, 2021. "The effects of social isolation on well-being and life satisfaction during pandemic," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-6, December.
    18. Lena Lämmle & Alexander Woll & Gert B. M. Mensink & Klaus Bös, 2013. "Distal and Proximal Factors of Health Behaviors and Their Associations with Health in Children and Adolescents," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-35, July.
    19. Fernando L Vázquez & Patricia Otero & J Antonio García-Casal & Vanessa Blanco & Ángela J Torres & Manuel Arrojo, 2018. "Efficacy of video game-based interventions for active aging. A systematic literature review and meta-analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-24, December.
    20. Christopher J Greenwood & George J Youssef & Primrose Letcher & Jacqui A Macdonald & Lauryn J Hagg & Ann Sanson & Jenn Mcintosh & Delyse M Hutchinson & John W Toumbourou & Matthew Fuller-Tyszkiewicz &, 2020. "A comparison of penalised regression methods for informing the selection of predictive markers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-14, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:23:p:12536-:d:690062. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.