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This research documents the responsibilities and stresses of people with homeless relatives. Health and housing problems create a variety of challenges and sometimes burdens within families which are particularly stressful for family caregivers who are actively involved with helping homeless adults.

Our study and data examine stress proliferation and stress buffering among people with homeless relatives using quantitative data from 118 interviews, mostly with parents and siblings of homeless adults.

Quantitative data from 118 interviews, largely from parents and siblings of homeless adults, show that people who spend more time or money helping homeless relatives experience higher levels of stress. Stress levels are also higher among those who help a homeless relative with activities of daily living and those who work to prevent harm that involves a homeless relative. Stress derived from efforts to prevent harm is associated with stronger social support to people with homeless relatives.

Social and health service providers can provide helpful social support for both homeless people and for people with homeless relatives, particularly in circumstances where harm reduction is required.

In the past many scientists have published papers on hormesis, on molecular stress responses, and on the similia principle in homoeopathy. Very few, however, have stressed a common base of interdependence of these fields. Reviews the most important of these studies to demonstrate their evolution and their mutual importance. Furthermore, a multidisciplinary approach is chosen to demonstrate research into the beneficial effects of subharmful doses of toxicants administered in suboptimal conditions (such as in stressed or injured organisms and cells).

Purpose: We review theory and research to suggest how research on sexual and gender minority (SGM) population health could more completely account for social class.

Approach: First, we review theory on social class, gender, and sexuality, especially pertaining to health. Next, we review research on social class among SGM populations. Then, we review 42 studies of SGM population health that accounted for one or more components of social class. Finally, we suggest future directions for investigating social class as a fundamental driver of SGM health.

Findings: Social class and SGM stigma are both theorized as “fundamental causes” of health, yet most studies of SGM health do not rigorously theorize social class. A few studies control socioeconomic characteristics as mediators of SGM health disparities, but that approach obscures class disparities within SGM populations. Only two of 42 studies we reviewed examined SGM population health at the intersections of social class, gender, and sexuality.

Research implications: Researchers interested in SGM population health would benefit from explicitly stating their chosen theory and operationalization of social class. Techniques such as splitting samples by social class and statistical interactions can help illuminate how social class and SGM status intertwine to influence health.

Originality: We synthesize theory and research on social class, sexuality, and gender pertaining to health. In doing so, we hope to help future research more thoroughly account for social class as a factor shaping the lives and health of SGM people.

This two‐part article starts by summarising the “story of stress” as developed in the training and development literature and presented on courses for stress management. The story is viewed as helpful but incomplete, for it is only in its simplicity that it accounts for individuals′ similarities, and only in its vagueness does it account for their differences. A need is identified to embellish the story of stress with a comprehensive framework which describes and provides a rationale for both the diversity and similarity of individuals′ stress reactions. In particular, a framework is required which goes beyond “fight or flight” and illuminates how people are physically, behaviourally, mentally and emotionally under stress. What is needed is a coherent and holistic account of personal character in stress. One such characterisation of stress is described, based on stress continuum. At one end of the continuum is located the variety of temporary startle reactions of individuals to transient stressors; towards the middle is the range of stressed responses displayed by individuals experiencing continuing, strengthening and cumulating stressors; and at the other end comes the emergence of stress characters which have cemented habitual and enduring stressed behaviours into characteristic ways of being in the world. Parts 1 and 2 expand upon this continuum. Part 1 provides a holistic description of the full range of individuals′ startle reactions and stressed responses. Part 2 describes the emergence of stress characters, links these characters to the stressors that prompt them and the effects they produce, and considers the methodological implications of the frameworks for those wishing to help alleviate individuals′ stress. Overall, the article develops the original stress story towards one which matches, and beyond that serves to integrate and provide a rationale for, the full qualitative diversity of individuals′ stress.

Purpose: The goal of Volume 21 of Advances in Medical Sociology, entitled Sexual and Gender Minority Health, is to showcase recent developments and areas for future research related to the health, well-being, and healthcare experiences of LGBTQA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Queer, Asexual, and related communities that do not identify as heterosexual) persons and communities.

Approach: In this introduction to the volume, we trace the historical development of research on sexual and gender minority (SGM) health, discussing how priorities, theories, and evidence have evolved over time. We conclude with brief suggestions for future research and an overview of the articles presented in this volume.

Findings: Research on SGM health has flourished in the past two decades. This trend has occurred in conjunction with a period of intense social, political, and legal discourse about the civil rights of SGM persons, which has increased understanding and recognition of SGM experiences. However, recent advances have often been met with resistance and backlash rooted in enduring social stigma and long histories of discrimination and prejudice that reinforce and maintain health disparities faced by SGM populations.

Value: Our review highlights the need for additional research to understand minority stress processes, risk factors, and resiliency, particularly for those at the intersection of SGM and racial/ethnic or socioeconomic marginality.

Purpose: This paper presents an exploratory analysis of minority stress and resiliency processes among parents in LGBTQ families. The paper examines two unique minority stress processes – (1) parents experiencing sexual and/or gender minority stress due to the stigmatization of their own identities as individuals and (2) parents sharing the gender minority stress faced by their transgender and gender expansive (TGE) child, and in the context of their parent–child relationship.

Methodology: Between 2017 and 2018 in-depth, in-person qualitative interviews on the topics of gender, stress, and resilience were conducted with 12 parents in LGBTQ families. Audio recordings were transcribed and then open coded using ATLAS.ti qualitative data analysis software. Analyses of data were informed by critical intersectional theories that locate gender and sexuality within structures of social and racial oppression.

Findings: Interview data indicate that minority stress is experienced by parents experiencing sexual and/or gender minority stress due to the stigmatization of their own identities, as well as among parents sharing the gender minority stress faced by their TGE child in the context of their parent–child relationship. Parents described community resilience and minority coping through interpersonal, community, and institutional support. This paper provides evidence that sexual and gender minority stressors are enhanced and resiliency factors are reduced among those experiencing racism and economic disadvantage.

Research limitations: This is an exploratory study conducted with a small sample of parents in a specific geographic area.

Originality/Value: These data provide initial evidence to support further analyses of the dyadic minority stressors within parent–child relationships in LGBTQ families

The discrimination/harassment experiences of survey respondents in different construction professional groups in South Africa is compared, and the relationship between harassment/discrimination and perceived work stress is examined.

An online survey was administered and 626 responses (ca. 6.5 per cent of target population) received. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the response data.

Harassment and discrimination on ethnic grounds are experienced in all of the South African construction professions included in the survey. Respondents also indicated that they felt underpaid and that their job security was adversely affected by their ethnicity. Sexual harassment and gender-based harassment and discrimination were more frequently reported by architects than by other professionals. Harassment and discrimination were found to correlate with higher perceived levels of work stress.

Harassment and discrimination, on ethnic and on gender-based grounds, constitute a significant stressor for many construction professionals in South Africa, particularly among architects.

Strategies designed to address and counter harassment/discrimination in the South African construction industry should be implemented or reinforced as part of broader stress management programmes. Employers have a major role to play in this, but unions and professional associations should also take part.

Previous research into work stress has focused on the experiences of workers in developed countries. The paper provides insight into the problem of harassment and discrimination in the unique situation of post-apartheid South Africa. It supports the link between harassment and discrimination and perceived levels of personal stress in this context.

Purpose: Caregivers are at risk of increased burden, and caregivers who provide care for a long duration may be at higher risk than short-term caregivers. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between caregiving duration and caregiver burden, as well as whether the relationship was moderated by paid leave.

Design/methodology/approach: We utilized a sample of employed caregivers from the Caregiving in the US 2015 dataset (n = 585) collected by the American Association of Retired Persons. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we examined the study relationships.

Findings: The authors found that caregiving duration was associated with increased burden. Although there was no direct relationship between paid leave and caregiver burden, paid leave buffered the association between caregiving duration and caregiver burden.

Research limitations/implications: This study is limited by a cross-sectional design. Longitudinal data collection efforts are needed to further examine the possible effects of paid leave on well-being and health outcomes.

Practical implications: Findings indicate a potential need to consider developing support programs for caregivers based on how long they need to provide care.

Societal implications: Policies are needed to decrease the burden felt by caregivers, especially those who provide care for a long period of time.

Originality/value: The current study is the first to explore the interrelationships among caregiving duration, paid leave, and caregiver burden.

The conclusion of the Cold War rivalry between the United States and former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s created new areas of opportunity and concern for U.S. national security policy. No longer menaced by the threat of nuclear war from Soviet military might, the United States emerged from the Cold War as the world's preeminent military power. Successful developments such as this often produce elation in the pronouncements of U.S. officials as a recent Clinton administration declaration demonstrates:

Purpose: In this chapter, we develop a concept of social biographies which draws on social network and life course theories to examine how a diverse set of social relationships impacts health of sexual and gender minority (SGM) people over time.

Design/methodology/approach: We provide an overview of several decades of research on SGM people's social relationships, organizing this research within a social biographies framework.

Findings: We theorize about the importance of both the structure and content of SGM people's social networks for health, how these social relationships interact with each other, how these social biographies and their impacts shift across SGM cohorts and over the life course, and how they further are shaped by the intersection of a range of factors (e.g., race/ethnicity, social class).

Social biographies can remain constant or change over time, and relationships of all types and durations have the power to significantly improve or undermine health. This is in part because social ties both buffer and exacerbate the inimical effects of stress on health.

Originality/value: Traditional conceptualizations of relationships fail to reflect the diversity of relationships in SGM lives. Studying this diversity deepens our view of how social biographies influence health and how health inequities between SGM and cisgender and heterosexual (cishet) populations emerge. Studying social biographies of SGM people using theoretical and methodological tools from life course and social network perspectives reveals existing voids in the current literature, enabling researchers to better understand the shifting nature of social relationships in the twenty-first century.