BACKGROUND Stigma involves discrediting a person or group based on a perceived attribute, behaviour or reputation associated with them. Sex workers (SW) and men who have sex with men (MSM) are key populations who are often at increased risk for the acquisition and transmission of HIV and who are affected by stigma that can negatively impact their health and well-being. Although stigma was inclu...

A sensitive bilobed stigma is thought to assure reproduction, avoid selfing and promote outcrossing. In addition, it may also play a role in pollinator selection since only pollinators with the appropriate body size can trigger this mechanism. However, no experimental study has investigated how the sensitive stigma responds to different pollinators and its potential effects on pollination. Mazu...

Lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women experience pervasive sexual stigma that harms wellbeing. Stigma is a multi-dimensional construct and includes perceived stigma, awareness of negative attitudes towards one's group, and enacted stigma, overt experiences of discrimination. Despite its complexity, sexual stigma research has generally explored singular forms of sexual stigma among LBQ women. ...

Background: Not much is known about correlates of HIV-related self-stigma among female sex workers. Using the theory of planned behavior in the Malaysian context, this study investigated the relationships of HIV knowledge, attitudes towards HIV, attitudes towards people living with HIV, perceived social support, self-esteem, and age with HIV-related self-stigma, also how much of the variance in...

Stigma is a crucial structure of female reproductive organ in plants. Stigma color is usually regarded as an important trait in variety identification in some species, but the molecular mechanism of stigma color formation remains elusive. Here, we characterized a tomato mutant, yellow stigma (ys), that shows yellow rather than typical green color in the stigma. Analysis of pigment contents reve...

Using data from 30 gay male, 45 lesbian, and 51 heterosexual couples who had recently adopted a child, the current study sought to (1) create and validate a measure that differentiated between perception of societal stigma about adoption and internalization of adoption stigma; (2) examine whether gender, sexual orientation, preferential adoption status, and transracial adoption status were asso...

BACKGROUND Despite increased life expectancy among patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), few studies have examined coping among adolescents and young adults with CF. Previous research suggests that stigma associated with chronic disease is related to worse physical and psychological health, but optimism may be protective. This study examined stigma and optimism among patients with CF. METHODS S...

We aimed to examine internalized stigma of patients with mental illness in Korea and identify the contributing factors to internalized stigma among socio-demographic, clinical, and psychosocial variables using a cross-sectional study design. A total of 160 patients were recruited from a university mental hospital. We collected socio-demographic data, clinical variables and administered self-rep...

HIV-related stigma is regarded as one of the major barriers in the development of effective prevention and care programs; but the stigma associated with HIV stigma is not a singular entity. The stigma of the infection is layered with other stigmas, such as those associated with the routes of transmission (e.g., sex work and injecting drug use) and personal characteristics (e.g., race, religion,...

Although stigma is considered a major barrier to effective responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, stigma reduction efforts are relegated to the bottom of AIDS programme priorities. The complexity of HIV/AIDS-related stigma is often cited as a primary reason for the limited response to this pervasive phenomenon. In this paper, we systematically review the scientific literature on HIV/AIDS-related s...