Examining disparities in excessive alcohol use among black and hispanic lesbian and bisexual women in the united states: An intersectional analysis

Objective: Sexual minority (i.e., lesbian, bisexual) women and racial-ethnic minority groups in theUnited States are disproportion-ately harmed by excessive alcohol use. This study examined disparities in excessive alcohol use at the intersection of race-ethnicity and sexual identity for non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic sexual minority women. Method: Using data from the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, wecompared the age-adjusted prevalence ofbinge drinking and heavy alcohol use among sexual minority women of color, sexual minority White women, and heterosexual women of color with that of White heterosexual women. The joint disparity is the difference in the prevalence of excessive alcohol use between sexual minority women of color and White heterosexual women. The excess intersectional disparity is the portion of the joint disparity that is due to being both aracial-ethnic minority and asexual minority woman. Results: Black and Hispanic sexual minority women reported the highest prevalence of binge drinking (45.4% and 43.4%, respectively), followed byWhite sexual minority women (35.7%) andWhite heterosexual women (23%). Black and Hispanic heterosexual women reported the lowest prevalence of binge drinking (20.8% and 20.2%, respectively). The joint disparity in binge drinking between Black sexual minority women and White heterosexual women was 21.2%, and the excess intersectional disparity was 17.7%. The joint disparity in binge drinking between Hispanic sexual minority women and White heterosexual women was16.8%, and theexcess intersectional disparity was10.8%. Conclusions: Disparities in excessive alcoholconsumption for Blackand Hispanicsexual minority women, compared with White heterosexual women,were larger than what would be expected when considering differences by race or sexual identity individually.