Life expectancy of gay men

We used data from a retrospective cohort of men aged 17 to 59 years, first interviewed in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III (NHANES III; –) and then followed for mortality status up to 18 years later. The four lines of evidence were consistent with previous findings suggesting that homosexual activity may be associated with a lifespan shortened by 20 to 30 years.

Previous estimates from obituaries and pre sex surveys suggested that the median age of death for homosexuals is less than 50 yr. Do those involved in homosexuality live as long on average as non-homosexuals? Hard evidence is difficult to come by, but the data we do have suggests that homosexuality tends to shorten life by many years. This briefing summarizes some of the key data. The life expectancy of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people is a subject of research.

Early research by the Cameron group purporting to find a significantly shorter life expectancy among homosexuals is not considered reliable, although it has been widely misused and cited. [1][2][3][4] During the AIDS crisis, a loss in average. As we have seen, the life expectancy of sexually active gay and bisexual men seems to be lower than others. LGBT individuals also suffer worse mental and physical health than their straight counterparts.

Program: Health Report. There may be marriage equality, but a recent study shows there's still a way to go for life expectancy equality. Researchers from Harvard found lesbian women died 20 per cent sooner than their heterosexual cohort, and bisexual women were even worse off, dying 37 per cent sooner. Getty Images: sasirin pamai.

Norman Swan : There's a study, Tegan, that we've covered for many years on the Health Report from the United States, called the Nurses' Health Study, where they followed thousands of female nurses for many, many years, with a lot of knowledge about their health, their well-being, what illnesses they've had, and so on. And it's been a rich source of information over the years on women's health.

A fascinating and quite troubling paper was released from the study though recently which has looked at the sexuality, in other words the sexual preferences of women in this study, following them through to look at what effect it may have on these women's lifespan, and it wasn't necessarily good news. Sarah McKetta : There's an extremely robust literature that spans multiple decades that has shown there are health disparities depending on sexual orientation.

So we know that people who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual have higher risks of chronic disease, of adverse mental health, of adverse behavioural health, like smoking and drinking. And this is due to the chronic experiences of stress and discrimination to be a minoritised identity. But we didn't know a whole lot about mortality differences.

We'd only had a couple of studies where we were really able to identify people who were lesbian, gay or bisexual and follow them for a long enough time that we could see a difference. Norman Swan : So you used this long-running study at Harvard of women who are nurses. What did you find? Sarah McKetta : One of the things that the Nurses' Health Study did was that very early on in the survey…so the survey started in the s and in they asked people about their sexual orientation, which compared to other surveys is extraordinarily early.

So we've had 30 years of following these women…. How valid was this declaration of their sexuality? Sarah McKetta : I actually love that you asked this because this is something we were thinking about very deeply. Part of this is that it was in the United States. We've surveyed these people multiple times over the past few years, I think the last time that we surveyed them on their sexual orientation identity was…I want to say it was like or , so we've gotten some more information about the sample that more people might be concealing their sexual orientation.

Maybe they're not responding, maybe they're saying they're heterosexual. Norman Swan : So if there is a premature mortality associated with being LGBTQI and they were in the heterosexual group, they may have pulled down the mortality rate of the heterosexual group, and therefore you don't see the difference. This is really what you're saying. Sarah McKetta : Exactly, yeah.

So if you were thinking about it like a risk ratio or something, you would think that maybe you wouldn't see as pronounced of a difference. Norman Swan : But potentially then, given that you did find a significant difference, albeit in low numbers, it actually could be bigger because you have this effect. Sarah McKetta : That's the startling thing. So I expected the effects. I'll tell you what the effects are. Again, we were sort of feeling like there were reasons why our results might be biassed towards a null finding, or they might be conservative.

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So there was a difference in magnitude depending on how people identified. This is a bunch of women who were working as nurses, so they were healthy enough to work, they all have the same job, so there's not going to be a lot of variability with regard to socioeconomic indicators or statuses that would be kind of on the causal pathway to worse health.

It's an extraordinarily non-Hispanic white sample.