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. 2024 Sep 7:12:100281.
doi: 10.1016/j.dadr.2024.100281. eCollection 2024 Sep.

Higher prevalence of polysubstance use among older lesbian, and gay US adults

Luis M Mestre  1 , Marney A White  1   2 , Becca R Levy  2 , Krysten W Bold  1
Affiliations

Higher prevalence of polysubstance use among older lesbian, and gay US adults

Luis M Mestre et al. Drug Alcohol Depend Rep. .

Abstract

Introduction: Polysubstance use (i.e., the use of more than one substance) is a major public health concern in the US that disproportionately hinders those from marginalized groups by sexual identity and age. Little research has examined this concern among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) older adults, and no study has measured past-30 day polysubstance use prevalence among these groups. The objective was to examine polysubstance use among older LGB adults compared to their heterosexual same-age peers and younger LGB counterparts.

Methods: We used the National Survey of Drug Use and Health 2021 and 2022 datasets with an analytic sample of 86,254 participants. Past-30 day polysubstance use prevalence was survey-weighted and adjusted by sociodemographic factors. We constructed Weighted multinomial models to compare polysubstance use between older LGB adults (65+ years old) with their same-age heterosexual and younger LGB counterparts.

Results: Older Gay/Lesbian adults had a significantly higher polysubstance use prevalence than their heterosexual counterparts (OR = 27.94; p <0.001) while heterosexual participants showed a decline in polysubstance use with age (OR = 0.27; p < 0.001). Polysubstance use among gay/lesbian (OR = 0.67; p = 0.491) and bisexual (OR = 1.04; p = 0.969) older adults did not significantly differ from their younger counterparts.

Conclusions: Polysubstance use is a public health concern for older gay/lesbian adults. Interventions are needed to address polysubstance use for older LGB adults, including early detection of polysubstance use and prevention strategies that are age and LGB inclusive.

Keywords: Age; Epidemiology; Health disparities; Polysubstance use; Sexual identity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Weighted Prevalence of number of substances used among US adults by sexual identity and age group past-30 day use, NSDUH 2021 and 2022.
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