Madelyn Toman

Background/Objectives: Interdisciplinary research teams that include critical disability studies (CDS) scholars and Healthcare and Medical Researchers have the potential to investigate complex lived experiences and explore new opportunities to best serve disabled communities. However, individuals in these fields typically approach disability research in different ways. Throughout this manuscript, we refer to a hypothetical interdisciplinary research team as an example of how to integrate the questions, challenges, and possibilities into practice when joining CDS and Healthcare and Medical Research. Discussion: First, we raise three large and complex questions that researchers must address (and discuss) when conducting disability research: (a) what is (a) disability, (b) what does it mean to live with a disability, and (c) who is included in research samples/as research participants for disability research? Then, we discuss the colliding and harmful relationship history between CDS and Healthcare and Medical Research fields, and the continued oppositional training of professionals in both fields. Finally, we offer insights into how collaborative efforts and methods of interdisciplinary research teams can optimize success when tackling complex research questions to serve disabled communities. Conclusions: We suggest approaches for projects at the intersection of CDS and Healthcare and Medical Research: holistic, person-centered research, treating individuals in the disability community as experts, and collaborating with the community while conducting research. This manuscript serves as a starting point for researcher teams looking to conduct ethical, rigorous, and trustworthy research at the intersection of health, medicine, and disability.

Introduction: Although dental dams can protect people with vaginas during oral sex, women rarely use them. Frequencies of use have been reported, though few studies address the multiple individual, relational, and structural factors that explain why women do not use dental dams. The purpose of this qualitative secondary analysis was to investigate ecological influences on women’s attitudes toward dental dams. Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of a qualitative study investigating how women make decisions about safer sex with same-sex and other-sex partners. Participants were women living in the USA in 2021 who had sex with partners with vaginas, partners with penises, or both. The analytic sample includes 26 cisgender women (27% heterosexual, 77% White, mean age = 22.86 years, age range = 18–29). Results: Using thematic analysis and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems lens, five themes were generated: a lack of awareness and education surrounding dental dams; women are open to using dental dams if sexual partners want to; norms for oral sex do not include using any type of barrier; dental dams are inaccessible; and dental dams are perceived as undesirable or unpleasurable. Conclusion: The results indicated that attitudes were not based solely how participants viewed dental dams, but also on the way that sexual partners view dental dams, barrier method norms during oral sex, and messages received from media, school-based sexual education, and other large structural influences. Policy Implications Findings provide two options moving forward: large systematic changes in order to change norms about dental dam use, or refocusing prevention emphasis on alternative, more widely accepted safer sex strategies.

Disabled communities’ sexualities have been historically oppressed. Currently in the U.S., public school curricula do not include inclusive sexual education and students with disabilities are often left out of classrooms that discuss any amount of personal health and sexual education (PHSE). Research on the disabled population is filled with samples of non-disabled individuals imposing their opinions on a population that they do not belong to. The purpose of this study was to capture lived experiences of ways emerging adults with disabilities learned about PHSE. Individuals with varied disabilities were intentionally included to add breadth to the research field. The final sample consisted of eight individuals (75% female, 87% White, mean age of 21.5). After conducting narrative interviews and analyses, four story types were generated: (1) “The Self-Guided Journey”, (2) “Experience is the Best Teacher”, (3) “Personal Health Matters More”, and (4) “Two Ears, One Mouth”. Our findings highlighted the lack of formal support and access to adequate, relevant information about sexuality for disabled communities. Informal sources, like families and media, sometimes served as helpful resources for PHSE and disabilities. Individuals’ disability symptoms and personal characteristics need to be considered when crafting universally applicable personal health and sexuality education.