Arjan Van Der Star

Dr. Arjan Van Der Star is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at San Diego State University within the College of Sciences. His work bridges social epidemiology and public health to address mental health disparities in sexual and gender minority populations.

• Ph.D. in Public Health & Social Epidemiology from Karolinska Institutet
• M.Sc. in Health Economics, Policy & Law from Erasmus University Rotterdam
• B.Sc. in Health Policy & Management from Erasmus University Rotterdam

His research focuses on:

• Sexual Orientation-Based Mental Health Disparities
• Gender Identity-Based Mental Health Disparities
• Minority Stress and Structural Stigma
• Socioecological Systems of Oppression

Recent publications highlight trends in:

• Longitudinal socioecological modeling of stigma's impact
• Legal epidemiology approaches to policy analysis
• Intervention design for LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention
• Cross-European health equity comparisons
• Multi-level stigma confounders in health outcomes

Dr. Van Der Star directs the SESH Lab and co-founded the CIPHER center (San Diego State University). His federally funded grants from the National Institute of Mental Health ($1.56M total) focus on structural stigma's mental health impacts and data harmonization techniques to reduce confounding bias.