From Clinic to Culture: Social Determinants of Health Influencing Vaginismus and GPPPD

Vaginismus remains under-recognised in both healthcare and sociocultural discourse, contributing to limited awareness and support. Although painful sex is common, it is often silenced, normalised, or moralised, shaping how symptoms are perceived and disclosed, impacting women's quality of life significantly. In clinical settings, reports are frequently dismissed or confined to narrow biomedical frameworks, delaying diagnosis, treatment, and holistic care.Help-seeking is further shaped by social determinants of health, including gender norms, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, age, disability, socioeconomic position, migration status, health literacy, relationship context, and mental health. These factors shift across the lifespan, altering barriers and needs while exposing inequities embedded in Eurocentric medical models.Importantly, not all affected individuals identify as heterosexual or cisgender women. The reclassification of vaginismus as Genito-Pelvic Pain/Penetration Disorder (GPPPD) adds complexity around terminology, identity, and continuity of care, underscoring the need for a globally informed, socially grounded examination of this condition.This Research Topic aims to advance globally relevant and interdisciplinary knowledge to improve recognition, understanding, and support for diverse experiences of vaginismus and GPPPD through a lens of social determinants of health. By situating clinical perspectives within social, cultural, and structural contexts, it seeks to inform healthcare practice, policy, education, and advocacy worldwide.The collection addresses gaps contributing to delayed help-seeking, diagnostic uncertainty, fragmented care, and low social awareness. By exploring how social determinants shape pathways to care, clinical encounters, and treatment experiences, it aims to support clinicians in providing trauma-informed and person-centred care and inform public discourse to reduce stigma and silence.Vaginismus and GPPPD carry substantial psychosocial burdens, including anxiety, depression, relational difficulties, disruptions to intimacy, diminished sexual agency, suicidal ideation, and reduced quality of life. Contributions using qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, clinical, public health, and policy approaches are invited to generate knowledge that improves healthcare and overall wellbeing for people with vaginismus and GPPPD.Topic of interest include:• Social determinants shaping clinical care for vaginismus and GPPPD• Global cultural stigmas around painful sex associated with vaginismus and GPPPD • Lived experiences of vaginismus and GPPPD across the life course and diverse populations, including LGBTQ+, disabled and ethnic minority communities• Equity-focused, person-centred, and trauma-informed models of care• Policy, education, and advocacy approaches to reduce diagnostic delay and improve care• Diagnostic change and implications in clinical practice and culture Topic editors: Tinashe Dune, Sowbhagya Micheal, Vijayasarathi Ramanathan Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79305/from-clinic-to-culture-social-determinants-of-health-influencing-vaginismus-and-gpppd