Implicit sexual health stereotypes and their relation to diagnoses and management recommendations

Sexual minority men (SMM) are disproportionately affected by health inequities. One reason may be that health care providers hold implicit sexual health stereotypes that associate SMM with sexually transmitted infections and that they manifest in implicit bias-in-action-implicit stereotypes influence diagnoses and management recommendations of SMM patients in health care settings. In the first of its kind, the present experiment tests an implicit bias-in-action hypothesis with a sample of nurse practitioner and physician assistant (NPPA) professionals and trainees.

NPPA participants completed a measure of implicit sexual health stereotypes, and then provided diagnoses and management recommendations for a male patient presented with a sexually transmitted infection and a history of having been sexually involved with either a new male or female partner.

NPPA participants exhibited implicit bias-in-action-strong implicit sexual health stereotypes predicted less correct diagnoses and management recommendations only in the case study in which the male patient had been sexually involved with a male (B = -.12, 95% confidence interval [-.21, -.06]) versus a female (B = -.03, 95% confidence interval [-.15, .08]) partner.

Our research suggests that health care providers' implicit bias-in-action may be one causal reason underlying the health inequities that disproportionately target SMM. Furthermore, educating health care providers about the potential of implicit bias-in-action in health care settings can circumvent the influential role of implicit stereotypes in diagnoses and management recommendations, thus improving the quality of provider-patient health care encounters. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).