Sexual orientation disparities in physical and mental health: The influence of minority stress, biomarkers of disease, and familial factors

With relevant regression models, data from: the Swedish Public Health Cohort, the LifeGene cohort, and a sample from the Swedish Twin Registry, will be analyzed to compare health between gay, lesbian, and bisexual (LGB) individuals as compared to heterosexuals. Specifically, we propose that LGB respondents will report (a) more prejudice events or minority stressors (i.e., victimization, discrimination, perceived stress), (b) greater biological markers of cardiovascular, metabolic, and respiratory diseases risk, and (c) familial (shared environmental and genetic) risk of disease, which will account for sexual orientation-related health disparities.The study team consisting of researchers with training in clinical psychology, social epidemiology, and medicine, has extensive expertise in research concerning stigma and social/contextual and biological determinants of sexual orientation health disparities, and has a productive history of collaboration.Despite significant changes in Sweden in legislation and attitudes towards homosexuality during the past decades, national health surveys show that LGB individuals report substantially higher rates of adverse health outcomes than heterosexuals. The reasons are largely unknown and no study has ever examined these three explanatory factors (social, biological, and familial) simultaneously within population-based data to identify the leading causes of sexual orientation disparities in health.