Research from the BEST Lab has shown in numerous studies that structural stigma—which we define as societal-level conditions, cultural norms, and institutional policies and practices—affects the health and wellbeing of stigmatized groups (for reviews, see Hatzenbuehler, 2014; 2016; 2017). In this current paper, BEST Lab researchers and colleagues used a novel strategy to further test this relationship. Specifically, we leveraged divergent mobility patterns, whereby a large group of sexual minority men participating in the EMIS study had moved from higher-to-lower structural stigma countries. This data structure provided a rare opportunity to examine whether, among movers, longer exposure to lower levels of structural stigma in their receiving country is associated with a reduced risk of adverse mental health outcomes. We found support for this hypothesis: Among those who had moved to and lived in the lower-structural stigma receiving country for 5 or more years, there was no association between country-of-origin structural stigma and depression or suicidality; in contrast, there was an increasing association between country-of-origin structural stigma and depression and suicidality for recent movers. We also identified three mechanisms that explain why structural stigma affected mental health: internalized stigma, social isolation, and identity concealment. These results suggest that moving from a higher to a lower stigma context can improve mental health, but only among those who have long enough exposure to the lower structural stigma context in the receiving country. These findings provide additional evidence that structural forms of stigma contribute to the development and maintenance of psychopathology among members of stigmatized groups.

Read more about this study in Yale Today and in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.