Latinx Sexual Minority Women and Substance Use: a Scoping Review and Call to Action

Latinx sexual minority women (LSMW) remain a greatly understudied population, likely due to the intersectional invisibility they face from living at the intersection of racism, sexism, and heterosexism. Little is known regarding the unique risk and protective factors associated with substance use among LSMW. The purpose of this scoping review is to identify and summarize the scientific literature on substance use among LSMW and suggest avenues for further research. The review involved three study members searching four widely used search engines (i.e., Google Scholar, EBSCO, ERIC, and PubMed) using a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) method. We extracted data regarding study design, analytic methods, sample (population, participant ethnicity sample size, age, and substance use eligibility), protective/risk factors assessed, and study outcomes.

The scoping review findings showed that only 13 of the 142 manuscripts that we screened met the inclusion criteria for this scoping review. Most of the manuscripts focused on assessing the substance use disparities among LSMW, due to their sexual minority status. Only three studies in this review assessed risk (acculturation, discrimination, and spirituality) and none assessed protective factors of LSMW substance use.

Current research has begun to identify the substance use disparities that LSMW face. However, there has been very little focus on identifying the factors that help to explain substance use disparities. We call for a greater focus on multilevel risk and protective factors at the micro, meso, exo, and macrosystems. We believe these risk factors can be targeted and protective factors can be leveraged in multilevel treatments that could help eliminate LSMW substance use disparities. We provide potential avenues for future clinical intervention (e.g., socio-culturally adapted interventions).