Social Determinants of Mental Health and Care Access Among 2SLGBTQI People: Highlights From Community-Engaged Research

Minoritized communities, such as Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, or intersex (2SLGBTQI) people, often encounter challenges and barriers when accessing mental health care, due to systemic inequities, prejudice, and discrimination present within health care and mental health care systems. One way to understand barriers to mental health access that 2SLGBTQI people experience is through the lens of the social determinants of health and mental health. In the current invited article, associated with Egale being recognized with the Canadian Psychological Association 2022 Humanitarian Award, we provide an overview of various ongoing and completed multidisciplinary research projects at Egale, which adopt a community-engaged and critical approach and centre the social determinants of mental health. Through this work, we argue that mental health care should be accessible, inclusive, equitable, antiracist, antiableist, and decolonial, and should centre the needs and perspectives of 2SLGBTQI people.