There was a very interesting article in the New York Times a few days ago that dealt with an examination of the physical and mental health among heterosexual adults versus those identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. The article was based on information gathered by the University of California, Los Angeles, as a part of their Center for Health Policy Research. Though they only conducted the study in California, it showed that there was a significant different in the two groups in terms of both mental and physical health.
In gay and bisexual men between the ages of 50 and 70, high blood pressure was more common than in their heterosexual counterparts. Also higher were rates of psychological stress, which were 45 percent higher among the gay and bisexual group.
A similar trend was seen among lesbian and bisexual women, who were 26 percent more likely than heterosexual women to report that they had either "fair" or "poor" health. Their rates of hypertension and diabetes were higher as well.
The differences between health in differing sexual orientations in a population is something that we haven't discussed too much in class so far besides in the context of HIV/AIDS. I think that it's interesting to identify that the two groups have different levels of health relating to things like diabetes of mental health as well, as the first step in any public health issue is identifying the problem or discrepancy between groups and then identifying a potential cure.
In investigating the "why" for this problem, the researchers found that approximately half of gay or bisexual men lived by themselves between the ages of 50 and 70, as opposed to only 13.4% of heterosexual men in this age category. This suggests that an underlying component of health is having a stable support network to provide care.
What the article didn't address, and what I'm curious about, is what role public health providers could have in adjusting this difference in health between sexual orientation groups. One potential solution is giving additional mental health and general physiological health screenings to groups that seem to be at greater risk for health problems to ensure that they receive adequate monitoring and attention even without people actually living with them to provide this role.
I wonder if one of the causes of this increased rate of mental health problems has to do with the social stigmas associated with homosexuality in this country. There is a large bias that exists against people that are homosexual. It would seem to make sense to me that the stress and pain associated with struggling so much to just be accepted for who you are would lead to an increase in issues with mental health. I would be interested to see if there are any similar studies that would deal with other "excluded" groups whether they be racial, religious, etc. that are not accepted by our society.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Pietro's comment about the stigmatism associated with homosexuality. This stigmatism could account for some of the statistics regarding the fact that many homosexuals will live on their own. This can be coupled with the prohibition of gay marriage in many states.
ReplyDeleteIf social environment can be considered a key indicator of health, I feel a lack of a social circle can negatively impact health as well.