The Hazards of Daily Stressors: Comparing the Experiences of Sexual and Gender Minority Young Adults to Cisgender Heterosexual Young Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Some individuals may be at greater risk for encountering stressors in daily life than others, especially those with minority identities. Initial evidence shows that the disparities between cisgender heterosexual (CH) individuals and sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals on stress-related experiences may be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined the daily stressors experienced by undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic (stressor exposure), the association between the experience of daily stress and same-day negative mood (stressor reactivity), and whether these varied between undergraduate students with SGM identities and their CH counterparts using a 14-day daily diary design. We did not find significant differences between SGM and CH groups on stressor exposure or stressor reactivity. One common feature of daily diary data is right censoring, which is when some individuals do not experience specific events during the study duration. We used multilevel survival analysis, which accounts for right censored data, to examine group differences in the risks of stressor exposure. We discuss the statistical issues involved when right-censored cases are not taken into consideration in studies of stressor exposure and propose multilevel survival analysis as one solution to move the field towards more accurately understanding whether, when, and why SGM individuals are at greater risk for stressors.