About
Stephanie Hernandez, PhD, MS, is an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Hernandez joined the Dornsife School of Public Health as part of the Drexel FIRST (Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation) program.
Hernandez’s research agenda centers on the experiences of minoritized populations to detect and understand health disparities and barriers to health care in the U.S.
Her doctoral research assessed the relationship between multiple or intersecting minoritized racial, ethnic, and sexual identities and physical and mental health outcomes, utilizing data from a large nationally representative health survey. While her dissertation focused on identifying and documenting patterns of health disparities, her current research shifts the discussion towards identifying mechanisms that help explain why disparities exist. As a postdoctoral researcher fellow, Hernandez examined perceived stress among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) Black and Hispanic adults, socioeconomic status differences across sexual orientation and gender expression, and allostatic load among androgynous and gender nonconforming adults.
Hernandez continues her work on sexual and gender minority health disparities at Drexel University. Her future research agenda is organized into three broad areas: documenting and understanding health disparities, operationalizing intersectionality in health disparities research, and incorporating biosocial approaches to understanding health disparities. In the first area, she will be using data from the Add Health SOGI-SES study to understand the relationship between sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, and health. In the second area focused on intersectionality, Hernandez will assess how systems of power, privilege, and oppression manifest within the health care system, and influence the health of adults with minoritized identities. In the third area, she will incorporate biosocial approaches to identify, understand, and produce new knowledge on the social and biological pathways that are important to population health and the understanding of health disparities across the life course.