Beyond smoking: The role of stigma in asthma rates among youth

This study aimed to examine asthma disparities at the intersection of four sociodemographic characteristics, inhaled substance use, and bias-based bullying as metrics of stigma. We hypothesized that high prevalence groups for asthma would be those with marginalized social positions and those reporting bullying experiences, independent of inhaled substance use.

The analytic sample (N = 90,367) included eighth, ninth, and 11th grade students who participated in the 2022 Minnesota Student Survey. Exhaustive Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection tested all combinations of sociodemographic characteristics (gender identity, sexual orientation, racial/ethnic identity, and access to resources), inhaled substance use (none vs. any), and bias-based bullying about sexuality, gender identity/expression, racial identity, and weight/size to predict mutually exclusive groups of youth based on self-reported asthma diagnosis.

Approximately 15% of the sample reported asthma. Sexually, gender, and racially/ethnically diverse youth reported higher rates of asthma relative to their heterosexual, cisgender, and White counterparts. High prevalence groups for asthma (rates between 24% and 41%) were characterized by having multiple marginalized identities, experiencing bias-based bullying, and engaging in inhaled substance use. Three of the 10 intersectional groups with a high prevalence of asthma were not inhaled substance users.

These findings suggest that stigma may help explain the asthma disparities among marginalized youth. Efforts to reduce asthma disparities in marginalized youth should move beyond pathologizing the individual through overfocusing on health behaviors and attend to root causes, like experiences of stigma. Future studies should examine systemic inflammation as the potential connection between stigma and asthma. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).