The Rise in Extreme Mental Distress Among LGBT People During Trump's Rise and Presidency

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-1-2021

Department

School of Business

Abstract

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) advocates argue that President Donald Trump's 2016 election victory and his administration's agenda raised concerns about changes to legal rights and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Using data on more than one million randomly sampled people during 2014–2020, this study estimates event study and difference-in-differences models to examine whether the prevalence of extreme mental distress (the percentage who reported major mental and emotional problems in all 30 of the last 30 days) increased among LGBT people relative to non-LGBT people after Trump became the Republican presidential frontrunner in early 2016. The difference-in-differences estimate indicates that the extreme mental distress gap between LGBT people and non-LGBT people increased from 1.8 percentage points during 2014–2015 to 3.8 percentage points after Trump's presidency became a real possibility in early 2016.

DOI

10.1016/j.ehb.2021.101034

Volume

43

ISSN

1570677X

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