Departmental Affiliations
Center & Institute Affiliations
Harry Barbee, PhD ’20, is an interdisciplinary social scientist who aims to identify, understand, and improve health and aging outcomes among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer populations.
Research Interests
LGBTQ Populations; Minority Stress; Aging and the Life Course; Gender and Sexuality; Medical Sociology; Gender Affirming Health Care; Public Policy
Experiences & Accomplishments
Dr. Barbee (they/them) uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how social locations — especially gender and sexuality — influence people’s experiences of health and aging. They are particularly interested in detecting, understanding, and reducing health disparities among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) populations by studying the population's exposures to stressful life events, like discrimination, harassment, and violence. Dr. Barbee is also interested in examining interventions that can improve health and aging outcomes among LGBTQ populations.
As an interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. Barbee's research addresses a range of topics that are important to medical sociologists, gerontologists, gender and sexualities scholars, public health experts, and policy makers. For instance, they have investigated topics such as access to gender affirming health care, experiences of victimization, workplace stress, cognitive health, and biological aging.
Select Publications
List of recent publications:
Barbee H, McKay T, Akré ER. Effects of Unequal Treatment, Verbal Harassment, and Physical Violence on Subjective Cognitive Health Among Middle-Aged and Older LGBTQ Adults: Variation by Type and Basis of Victimization. Annals of LGBTQ Public and Population Health. Published online September 8, 2024. doi:10.1891/LGBTQ-2024-0004
Barbee H, Hassan B, Liang F. Postoperative Regret Among Transgender and Gender-Diverse Recipients of Gender-Affirming Surgery. JAMA Surg. 2024;159(2):125–126. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2023.6052
Barbee H, McKay T. Do supportive work environments matter for minority aging? Work stress and subjective cognitive impairment among middle-age and older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer adults. Acta Psychologica. 2023;237:103949. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103949
Barbee H, Deal C, Gonzales G. Anti-Transgender Legislation—A Public Health Concern for Transgender Youth. JAMA Pediatrics. 2022;176(2):125-126. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.4483
Barbee H. Harnessing progress: Gender, sexuality, and positive self-perceptions of aging in midlife. Journal of Aging Studies. 2022;61:101008. doi:10.1016/j.jaging.2022.101008