Stigma Theory
Stigma and Time
Stigma is constantly changing. It waxes and wanes throughout history, is experienced and perpetuated by humans who develop over their life course, and is tied to social statuses (like illnesses and identities) that are gained, change, or lost over people’s lives. Although stigma is inherently fluid, our research and interventions typically treat stigma as if it were fixed or stagnant. We have argued that better integrating time into stigma research can accelerate our understanding of how and when stigma harms health as well as our ability to intervene to address stigma and improve health. We focus on three timescales, including the historical context, human development, and stigma course.
Health Stigma and Discrimination Framework
Health-related stigma frameworks typically focus on one health condition in isolation. This tendency encourages a siloed approach to research on health-related stigma, impeding comparisons across stigmatized conditions and research on innovations to reduce health-related stigma and improve health outcomes.
Mental Illness Stigma Framework
There has been a proliferation of research on mental illness stigma; however, lack of consistency and clarity in the conceptualization and measurement of mental illness stigma has limited the accumulation of scientific knowledge about mental illness stigma and its consequences.
Concealable Stigmatized Identities Outcomes Model (CSI-Outcomes Model)
The CSI-Outcomes Model differentiates between two components of concealable stigmatized identities, including valenced content and magnitude, which we theorize are important for determining the impact of a concealable stigmatized identity on psychological, physical, and behavioral health outcomes.
Stigma and HIV Disparities Model
In collaboration with Drs. Laura Bogart, Jack Dovidio, and David Williams, I developed the Stigma and HIV Disparities Model to describe how societal stigma related to race and ethnicity is associated with racial/ethnic HIV disparities via its manifestations at the structural level (e.g., residential segregation) as well as the individual level among perceivers (e.g., discrimination) and targets (e.g., internalized stigma).
Stigma Mechanisms in Health Disparities Model
This model describes ways in which social stigma is manifested at the sociocultural, interpersonal, and individual levels.
HIV Stigma Framework
I developed the HIV Stigma Framework with Dr. Stephenie Chaudoir to describe how HIV stigma is experienced by individual people living with and without HIV as a series of stigma mechanisms that impact their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
