An Urgent Need for Quantitative Intersectionality in Physical Activity and Health Research

Abstract

The term intersectionality was originally introduced by Crenshaw 1 to highlight how Black women's experiences were marginalized via erasure within feminist movements.Using intersectional analysis, Crenshaw and others identified the modal "woman's experience" of oppression as a quintessentially White woman's experience in the absence of any consideration of race, as was common in early second-wave feminist organizing.Since Crenshaw's initial formulation, intersectionality has been extrapolated beyond gender and race to consider how many individual factors intersect with and impact each other in the lives of individuals and communities.Today, intersectionality is a theoretical and methodological framework for understanding the ways in which gender identity, gender expression, race/ethnicity, disability, class, age, and other social identities interweave in their impact on health and well-being. 2,3cknowledging that interwoven forms of marginalization cannot be reduced to one particular factor, an intersectional approach considers how simultaneously belonging within multiple marginalized groups informs how one is impacted by marginalization. 4 Intersectionality in Physical Activity ResearchEvidence from White settler colonies, such as Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, as well as racially and ethnically diverse parts of the world consistently suggests that participation in regular physical activity, including sport, is the highest among well educated, wealthy, cis-heterosexual White, able-bodied men above all others. 5,6Barriers to physical activity participation in relation to race/ethnicity, gender identity and expression, ability, class, and other social position factors have predominantly been investigated using qualitative methods. 7This qualitative preponderance is partly attributable to a premise of intersectionality that social positions and relevant experiences cannot neatly fit into ordinal scales for metric statistical analysis. 8Nonetheless, one recent scoping review investigating the operationalization of intersectionality in physical activity research 9 suggested that intersectionality may also serve as a useful framework in quantitative research.In particular, elucidating complex processes of individual-and social-structural-level factors that drive inequalities in physical activity participation in populationbased, large-scale surveys could better inform more inclusive physical activity promotion policies and programs.In addition to the need for quantitative research applying intersectionality, the

Topics & Concepts