Presented by Ryan Watson, associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of Connecticut, who will discuss his team's ongoing work with his large national datasets focused on sexual and gender diverse (SGD) populations. Most recently in 2022, his team collected a dataset of over 17,000 SGD youth aged 13-18 from across the United States in collaboration with the Human Rights Campaign. Many of these youth have given permission to be recontacted, providing a rich opportunity for interested researchers. A complimentary body of research funded by NIH has focused on preventing health disparities (e.g., HIV) through prevention and intervention strategies (e.g., PrEP) attuned to intersecting social positions. His team is leveraging longitudinal data from N=300 Black/Latine sexual diverse men aged 18-29, including 5 waves of surveys for all 300 and qualitative interviews for 30/300. Dr. Watson will discuss the contemporary challenges collecting large data online, highlight a quantitative method his team is using to explore intersectionality, and provide areas for collaboration with his existing data. 

Watson's program of research is focused on reducing health disparities among sexual and gender diverse (SGD) youth and young adults. Motivated by the urgent need to reduce the inequities in health for vulnerable populations, he has focused his scholarship on SGD youth and young adults, their relationships within family and school contexts, and their health experiences. Watson has been awarded over a million dollars in federal funding and published more than 185 peer-reviewed papers in the spirit of better understanding the mechanisms that drive well-documented injustices in health, school, and community experiences for SGD individuals.