Lesbian and Bisexual Women More Likely to Die Earlier Than Straight Women

Lesbian and bisexual women are more likely to die earlier than heterosexual women – in some cases up to 37% earlier.

The grim statistics come from a deeper study of the women’s medical records dating back to 1989, as part of the Nurses’ Health Study II, which studies chronic diseases in women and examines risk factors.

“Participants who identified as lesbian or bisexual had significantly earlier mortality during the study period compared to heterosexual women,” according to the study, which was published in Journal of the American Medical Association

Specifically, lesbians died 20% earlier and bisexual women 37% earlier than their heterosexual counterparts.

“One of the strengths of this study is that we were able to separate bisexual and lesbian participants, because we had enough people and followed them long enough to actually look at those risks separately, which no other US study has been able to do,” she said. the study’s lead author, Sarah McKetta, told NBC News.

“We’ve known for a very long time that there are systematic and highly reproducible health disparities for LGB people, especially LGB women, in many outcomes,” McKetta told the outlet.

“We saw differences in the use of tobacco and alcohol, in mental health, in chronic diseases. Basically, any outcome that we’ve looked at across multiple studies, we see that lesbian, gay and bisexual women are at greater risk.”

Picture of a woman in a doctor’s office.

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And as McKetta said, discrimination is a factor — from systemic barriers to health care to discriminatory practices by individual providers.

“We also know it’s because of levels of discrimination, from structural to individual,” she told NBC News.

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The reason bisexual women have a higher risk of early death, she shared, is because “they have these double pressures with regards to their identity and experience discrimination within and outside of queer communities.”

According to a report in the National Library of Medicine, “bisexual women report increased alcohol and drug use compared to other sexual minority women.”

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And another study said, “bisexual women are at greater risk than heterosexual and lesbian women for mental health problems, such as depression, and these differences relate to the unique stressors that bisexual women experience.”

“One of the things I was concerned about with this study was that the conclusion would be that being gay kills,” she said. “It doesn’t kill to be gay. It kills to be discriminated against. And that is the lived experience of lesbian and gay women and bisexual women who are just trying to walk in the world.”

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education