Drawing data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, this dissertation investigated adolescents’ sleep health disparities based on double marginalized identities of ethnic-racial minority and sexual orientation minority (study 1). This dissertation further comprehensively examined the role of stigma, targeting both marginalized identities of ethnicity-race and sexual orientation, at both the structural level and the interpersonal level, in contributing to sleep disturbances among the specific group–adolescents with double marginalized identities of ethnic-racial minority and sexual orientation minority (i.e., LGB youth of color; study 2). The first study showed that LGB youth of color were at excessive risk of sleep disturbances, when either compared to the non-marginalized White heterosexual group, or to the groups with single marginalized identity (i.e., White LGB, Latinx heterosexual, Black heterosexual). Furthermore, the sleep disparities among LGB youth of color spanned across all the examined dimensions (i.e., duration, timing, and variability) and was more salient during weekdays than weekends. The second study provided initial evidence that state-level structural stigma directly affected sleep health, while the two forms of interpersonal discrimination impacted sleep in a multiplicative way. Taken together, these findings provided crucial insights in terms of on whom to target and what aspects to address in order to mitigate sleep health disparities based on ethnicity-race and sexual orientation.
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