A New Piece of the Puzzle: Sexual Orientation, Gender, and Physical Health Status

Abstract

Although research has long documented the relevance of gender for health, studies that simultaneously incorporate the relevance of disparate sexual orientation groups are sparse. We address these shortcomings by applying an intersectional perspective to evaluate how sexual orientation and gender intersect to pattern self-rated health status among U.S. adults. Our project aggregated probability samples from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) across seven U.S. states between 2005 and 2010, resulting in an analytic sample of 10,128 sexual minority (gay, lesbian, and bisexual) and 405,145 heterosexual adults. Logistic regression models and corresponding predicted probabilities examined how poor self-rated health differed across sexual orientation-by-gender groups, before and after adjustment for established health risk factors. Results reveal distinct patterns among sexual minorities. Initially, bisexual men and women reported the highest--and gay and lesbian adults reported the lowest--rates of poor self-rated health, with heterosexuals in between. Distinct socioeconomic status profiles accounted for large portions of these differences. Furthermore, in baseline and fully adjusted regression models, only among heterosexuals did women report significantly different health from men. Importantly, the findings highlight elevated rates of poor health experienced by bisexual men and women, which are partially attributable to their heightened economic, behavioral, and social disadvantages relative to other groups.

A Descriptive Epidemiology of Sexual Behavior and Interest in Older Adults with Diabetes

“…Indeed, our findings for male and female study participants might appear much more nuanced if we had access to more detailed information about their sex, gender, and sexuality. We thus join other scholars in calling for increased attention to the diversity of sex, gender, and sexuality in research on physical health [19] and extend this recommendation to scholarship on diabetes specifically.…”

Health Disparities in Nonreligious and Religious Older Adults in the United States: A Descriptive Epidemiology of 16 Common Chronic Conditions

“…Rather than assuming any relationship between religion, nonreligion, and health outcomes, we began our study with a foundational epidemiological question (Gordis 2004): how are common chronic conditions distributed among nonreligious people and religious people? To further map the prevalence of chronic conditions within and between such populations, we then asked a core question in intersectional studies of health (Grollman 2012): how do chronic physical condition frequencies vary in relation to intersecting social locations among nonreligious people?…”

“…Outputs from each product function were expressed as percentages for ease of interpretation across disciplines. We thus refer to these values as "frequency" rather than "prevalence" estimates, as the latter are usually expressed in cases per 100,000 population (Gordis 2004).…”

“…Our findings echo intersectional studies in health specifically (Grollman 2012) and social life generally (Collins 2000) in suggesting that we can learn at least as much about how intersecting social forces influence nonreligious people's health as we can from similar analyses of religious people. As is common in epidemiological practice (see Gordis 2004), our prevalence estimates of nonreligious health variation can provide a foundation for systematic analyses of the prevalence of various mental and physical health conditions among nonreligious populations, correlational studies seeking to tease out nuances and influences in nonreligious health outcomes or experiences of chronic conditions, and qualitative and quantitative analyses of the ways intersectional statuses play out in the health experiences and behaviors of nonreligious people.…”

“…While this issue is generally only mentioned in passing or left unsaid in studies claiming relationships between religion and health (likely due to the amount of faith placed in correlation-based research in the social sciences at present), a casual glance at established epidemiological practice reveals the importance of first establishing the prevalence of a given health issue before turning to correlational methods to tease out nuances within such phenomena (Gordis 2004). The prevalence of a health condition is the proportion of a population currently living with that condition (Gordis 2004). Without knowing the prevalence of a given health outcome within and between specific populations, researchers sometimes extrapolate the meaning of a given correlation based on their own assumptions and experiences .…”