Public Health Grad Students Conduct Groundbreaking Research and Advocate for Change

Alvin Tran, Sc.D., MPH, and the student researchers pursuing their MPH broke new ground in their research – finding a connection between the use of dating apps and body dissatisfaction – and published their findings in the highly regarded BMC Public Health this spring. And their work continues.

"Research should never stop at the publication stage," Dr. Tran said. "We need to work with community leaders, politicians, and leaders of nonprofits to translate our findings into action. That’s important to me and that’s what I train my students to do in order to be advocates for change."

Dr. Tran and two of his former students, Mabintou Darboe ’22 MPH and Anirudh Goyal ’22 MPH, along with Nick Birk of the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health, found that sexual- minority males who use dating apps tend to have greater body dissatisfaction than those who don’t use dating apps.

Working with Qualtrics software, Dr. Tran and the team surveyed sexual-minority men from around the country. The team found that sexual-minority males who use data apps "demonstrated significantly elevated odds of engaging in unhealthy weight-control behaviors, including misusing diet pills, laxatives, muscle building supplements, and purging."

Their study found that "online dating apps have many similarities to traditional media in the sense that they also present and promote muscular and lean body types as the socially acceptable physique; many dating apps also allow their users to digitally alter their images."

The first thing people see on a dating app is a person’s profile picture, Dr. Tran noted. "Do they quietly decline to meet with you or swipe on you, and say not-so-nice things? Do they comment on your weight or appearance? Does that have a short or long-term impact on your satisfaction with your appearance or other mental health-related factors?"

Dr. Tran and Goyal said poor body image can lead people to take muscle enhancers and diet pills. "Many of these substances are available in your local dietary supplement store or pharmacy, and people think they are safe and effective, and we don’t know the answer to that," Dr. Tran said. "A lot of research has found adulterated and banned ingredients in some of those supplements."

The study was particularly timely because, Goyal said, "mobile dating apps are widely used, and continue to expand."

Goyal said doing the research in Dr. Tran’s WeEmbody Lab honed his skills in data analysis and manuscript writing, and Dr. Tran’s motivation and support led to his current position as a research associate in the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine. He is studying the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines and the influenza vaccine, and he eventually plans to pursue a Ph.D. in epidemiology.

Goyal presented a poster on body image related to the group’s research at the Society of Behavioral Medicine's 43rd Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions last year. "We were able to spread word about this to other doctors, researchers and public-health analysts," he said.

Dr. Tran said he hopes researchers across the globe will build upon their findings. His earlier research in this area has been cited repeatedly "and that’s exciting, but at the same time, it’s a sad topic, and I hope we are able to put an end to this public-health concern over time."