Thinh Toan Vu
Resilience, a key protective factor for mental health, may vary across intersecting identities, but this remains underexplored. This study applied Intersectional Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy to examine resilience inequities at the intersection of race/ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation among U.S. adults in a predominantly urban and suburban sample. Data came from 6543 adults in the National Wellbeing Survey 2024. Resilience was measured using 6-item Brief Resilience Scale (range 1-5), where higher scores indicate greater resilience. Participants were classified into 24 intersectional social strata based on race/ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation. Multilevel models estimated the total variance in resilience due to between-strata differences and the share explained by additive main effects of these social dimensions. Mean resilience was 3.2 (SD = 0.8), with 35.1% reporting low and 10.5% high resilience. Intersectional strata explained 4.13% of total variance in resilience, with 95% attributable to additive main effects and the remainder reflecting intersectional interactions. Non-Hispanic Black (β = 0.25) and Hispanic (β = 0.11) adults reported higher resilience than non-Hispanic white counterparts, while female sex (β = -0.16 vs. male) and sexual minority status (bisexual: β = -0.23, homosexual: β = -0.22 vs. heterosexual) were associated with lower resilience. Model-predicted stratum means ranged from 2.83 to 3.46; sexual minority females ranked lowest across most racial and ethnic groups, whereas non-Hispanic Black heterosexual individuals occupied the highest positions. As resilience varies across intersecting identities, interventions should address combined sex- and sexuality-based stressors faced by sexual minority females, while lessons from culturally supported resilience in Black and Hispanic communities may inform strategies to strengthen psychological wellbeing.