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4384 Factors Impacting Access to Gender Affirming Care for Gender Diverse Youth in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2020

Kacie Kidd
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Amber L. Hill
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Gina M. Sequeira
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Scott Rothenberger
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Kristin N. Ray
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Elizabeth Miller
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Gerald T. Montano
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
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Abstract

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OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Access to pediatric subspecialty care varies by sociodemographic factors. Providers for gender diverse youth (GDY) are rare, and GDY face health disparities, stigma, and discrimination. We examined the association between GDY access to medical and mental health care and rurality, race, parental education, and other GDY-specific factors. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We surveyed parents of GDY (<18 years old) across the United States. Participants were recruited through online communities and listserves specific to parents of GDY. We determined associations between access to gender-specific medical or mental health providers and rurality, race, parental education, as well as other GDY-specific factors including age, time since telling their parent their gender identity, parent-adolescent communication, parent stress, and gender identity using chi-square or Fisher’s exact tests. We calculated adjusted odds ratios using logistic regression models. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: We surveyed 166 parents and caregivers from 31 states. The majority (73.2%) identified as white, 66.5% had earned a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 7.6% lived in a zip code designated rural by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. We found no evidence of association between reported GDY access to medical or mental health care and race, parental education, or rurality. We did find a significant univariate association between access to mental health care and feminine (either female or transfeminine/transfemale) gender identity (p = 0.033, OR 2.60, 95% CI 1.06 – 6.36). After controlling for parent-adolescent communication in a backwards elimination logistic regression model, it was no longer significant (p = 0.137, OR 2.05, 95% CI 0.80 – 5.25). DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Despite rurality, race, and parental education impacting access to pediatric subspecialty care, we failed to find these associations among GDY accessing gender care. There is a need to better understand structural and societal barriers to care for this population including the impact of stigma and discrimination.

Type
Health Equity & Community Engagement
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Association for Clinical and Translational Science 2020