Sexual minority status and self-rated health: the importance of socioeconomic status, age, and sex

Abstract

Objectives: I examined how sexual minority status, as indicated by sex of sexual partners, is associated with self-rated health and how socioeconomic status suppresses and age and sex moderate this association.

Methods: I used multinomial logistic regression to analyze aggregated data from the 1991 to 2010 General Social Survey, a population-based data set (n = 13,480).

Results: Respondents with only different-sex partners or with any same-sex partners reported similar levels of health. With socioeconomic status added to the model, respondents with any same-sex partners reported worse health than those with only different-sex partners, but only if sexual intercourse with same-sex partners occurred in the previous 5 years. Age and sex moderated this relationship: having any same-sex partners was associated with worse health for women but not men and among younger adults only.

Conclusions: The relationship between sexual minority status and self-rated health varies across sociodemographic groups. Future research should use population-level data to examine other health outcomes and continue to explore how the intersection of sexual minority status and other sociodemographic indicators shapes health.

FIGURE 1—

Relative risk ratio of reporting fair or poor health or good health, stratified by age, for any recent same-sex partners compared with only different-sex partners: General Social Survey, 1991–2010. Note. Reference is excellent self-rated health, adjusted for year of interview, sex, race, marital status, educational attainment, and log of income. *P < .05; **P < .01.

FIGURE 2—

Relative risk ratio of reporting fair or poor health or good health, stratified by sex, for any recent same-sex partners compared with only different-sex partners: General Social Survey, 1991–2010. Note. Reference is excellent self-rated health, adjusted for year of interview, age, race, marital status, educational attainment, and log of income. **P < .01.