Relationships between childhood trauma history and cardiovascular health among sexual minority adults

Parker, Vanessa

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120534 Copy

Description

Title

Relationships between childhood trauma history and cardiovascular health among sexual minority adults

Author(s)

Parker, Vanessa

Issue Date

2023-04-27

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Liechty, Janet

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Liechty, Janet

Committee Member(s)

• Garthe, Rachel
• Liechty, Toni
• Wade, Ryan

Department of Study

School of Social Work

Discipline

Social Work

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• childhood trauma
• cardiovascular health
• LGBT

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease represents a leading cause of death among high-income nations including the US (Caceres et al., 2020; CDC, 2020). Cardiovascular-related health behaviors among sexual minoritized (SM) populations remain under investigated in the literature. Previous literature has indicated that sexual minority adults are at increased risk for developing cardiovascular-related health behaviors, and that this might in part be due to trauma history. This dissertation is guided by minority stress theory and aims to better understand the relationship between childhood trauma history and cardiovascular-related health indicators among young adults in the United States, with an emphasis on a sexual minoritized subpopulation. This study utilizes publicly available data from waves three and four of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). Add Health is a longitudinal, nationally representative data set which surveyed young adults ages 18-26 in 2001-2002 at wave three (W3; n=4,882) and at ages 24-32 in 2008 at wave four (W4; n=5,114). At W3 participants were asked to report their sexual orientation, and those who indicated a response other than straight/heterosexual were coded as a sexual minority for this study (n=402) and those who reported they were not attracted to men or women were eliminated from the sample. This yielded a total analytic sample of 4,136 young adults who responded to surveys at both W3 and W4. Through logistic regression and path analysis, this dissertation addresses three research questions to investigate the associations between childhood trauma history (i.e., sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect) and cardiovascular health outcomes (i.e., obese body mass index [BMI], hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease) among young adults. Findings revealed that individuals who reported history of childhood sexual abuse at W3 had 4.6 times the odds of reporting cardiovascular disease diagnosis at W4 compared to those who did not report sexual abuse. Among sexual minority adults (n=402), none of the three types of childhood trauma history examined were found to be associated with obese BMI, hypertension, high cholesterol, or diabetes diagnosis at W4. Among this young adult population, those who reported childhood physical abuse at W3 had 2.1 times the odds of reporting high cholesterol diagnosis at W4 when controlling for sociodemographic background factors. Sexual minoritized identity was not found to moderate associations between reported childhood abuse or neglect and any of the examined cardiovascular health indicators. Physical activity, cigarette smoking, and fast-food intake at W4 were not found to mediate associations between reported childhood sexual abuse at W3 and cardiovascular disease diagnosis at W4. Overall, findings suggest that each of the three types of childhood trauma was associated with one or more indicators of poor cardiovascular health in the population, but not specifically among sexual minoritized young adults as assessed in this study. The three healthy behaviors assessed did not mediate associations between childhood sexual trauma and cardiovascular disease in young adulthood. Implications for social work theory, policy, and practice are discussed; suggestions for future research regarding cardiovascular health among young adult populations are identified.

Graduation Semester

2023-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2023 Vanessa Parker

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