Mental and Physical Health Issues Increase among Younger LGB Communities

The study, funded by the National Institute of Health and published in the journal Demography, examined five key indicators of physical and mental health – psychological distress, depression, anxiety, self-rated physical health and activity limitation – of nearly 180,000 study participants across Millennial, Generation X, Baby Boomer and pre-Boomer generational cohorts.

Surprisingly, Liu and Reczek found that health disadvantages for LGB individuals increased among more recent generational cohorts, with LGB Millennials suffering more health disadvantages than LGB Gen-Xers or Baby Boomers. Moreover, bisexual respondents experienced even worse health disparity trends across generations than their gay and lesbian peers.

For example, the study found that gay and lesbian Baby Boomers are 150% more likely to experience both anxiety and depression compared to straight peers; bisexual.

Boomers are also about 150% more likely to experience anxiety than their straight peers but over twice as likely to experience depression.

Comparatively, for gay and lesbian Millennials, the likelihood of feeling anxious and depressed is almost 200% and 250% higher than that of their straight peers, respectively, and bisexual Millennials have an almost 300 and 380% increased likelihood than their straight peers.

“Older LGB people have experienced significant interpersonal and institutional discrimination throughout their lives, so they may perceive the current era to be relatively better than the past, and therefore may experience improved well-being as a result of this perception,” Liu said.

She also suggests that the findings could be explained by the fact that older LGB people have had more time to develop better coping skills than their younger peers, and that more Millennials identify as LGB than older generations.

Liu is hopeful that this study will demonstrate that advancements in civil rights and social acceptance for the LGBTQ+ community have not yet translated into health equity.

“These health disparities may be a result of more insidious and deeply embedded factors in U.S. society that are not eradicated simply with changes in marriage or discrimination laws,” Liu said.

“Instead, more drastic societal changes at both the interpersonal and institutional levels must take place. Public policies and programs should be designed and implemented to eliminate health and other major disadvantages among LGBTQ+ Americans.”

Source: Eurekalert