IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v272y2021ics0277953621000630.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mortality risk among a sample of sexual minority women: A focus on the role of sexual identity disclosure

Author

Listed:
  • Everett, Bethany G.
  • Wall, Melanie
  • Shea, Eileen
  • Hughes, Tonda L.

Abstract

Almost no research has examined factors that contribute to mortality risk among sexual minority women (SMW). This study capitalizes on a 21-year community-based longitudinal study of SMW to examine the association between sexual identity disclosure and mortality risk. Forty-nine SMW who were recruited in 2000–01 or 2010–12 (6.3% of the sample), were confirmed dead by 2019. The mean age at death was 56.5 years. We used Cox proportional hazard models to show that SMW who had disclosed their sexual identity to 100% of their immediate family members had a 70% reduction in the risk of mortality compared to SMW who disclosed to less than 33% of their immediate family, after adjusting for several sociodemographic and health variables. Our results suggest that facilitating acceptance of SMW and their ability to disclose their identity may be an important way to improve health and life expectancy among SMW.

Suggested Citation

  • Everett, Bethany G. & Wall, Melanie & Shea, Eileen & Hughes, Tonda L., 2021. "Mortality risk among a sample of sexual minority women: A focus on the role of sexual identity disclosure," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:272:y:2021:i:c:s0277953621000630
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113731
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953621000630
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113731?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Georg Heinze & Michael Schemper, 2001. "A Solution to the Problem of Monotone Likelihood in Cox Regression," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 57(1), pages 114-119, March.
    2. Fredriksen-Goldsen, K.I. & Kim, H.-J. & Shui, C. & Bryan, A.E.B., 2017. "Chronic health conditions and key health indicators among lesbian, gay, and bisexual older US adults, 2013-2014," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 107(8), pages 1332-1338.
    3. Hatzenbuehler, Mark L. & Rutherford, Caroline & McKetta, Sarah & Prins, Seth J. & Keyes, Katherine M., 2020. "Structural stigma and all-cause mortality among sexual minorities: Differences by sexual behavior?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    4. Cochran, S.D. & Mays, V.M. & Bowen, D. & Gage, S. & Bybee, D. & Roberts, S.J. & Goldstein, R.S. & Robison, A. & Rankow, E.J. & White, J., 2001. "Cancer-related risk indicators and preventive screening behaviors among lesbians and bisexual women," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(4), pages 591-597.
    5. Cochran, S.D. & Björkenstam, C. & Mays, V.M., 2016. "Sexual orientation and all-cause mortality among US adults aged 18 to 59 years, 2001-2011," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 106(5), pages 918-920.
    6. Kail, B.L. & Acosta, K.L. & Wright, E.R., 2015. "State-level marriage equality and the health of same-sex couples," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 105(6), pages 1101-1105.
    7. Bethany Everett & Stefanie Mollborn, 2014. "Examining Sexual Orientation Disparities in Unmet Medical Needs Among Men and Women," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(4), pages 553-577, August.
    8. Hughes, Tonda & Szalacha, Laura A. & McNair, Ruth, 2010. "Substance abuse and mental health disparities: Comparisons across sexual identity groups in a national sample of young Australian women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 824-831, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chau, Nancy H. & Qin, Yu & Zhang, Weiwen, 2015. "Networked Leaders in the Shadow of the Market – A Chinese Experiment in Allocating Land Conversion Rights," Working Papers 250022, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    2. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    3. Sugiyama, Yuri, 2022. "Can Soft Law Improve the Welfare of Sexual Minorities? The Case of Same-sex Partnership Policy in Japan," CEI Working Paper Series 2022-06, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    4. Pianto, Donald M. & Cribari-Neto, Francisco, 2011. "Dealing with monotone likelihood in a model for speckled data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 1394-1409, March.
    5. Lior Rennert & Zichen Ma & Christopher S. McMahan & Delphine Dean, 2022. "Effectiveness and protection duration of Covid-19 vaccines and previous infection against any SARS-CoV-2 infection in young adults," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    6. Michael E. Martell & Leanne Roncolato, 2023. "Economic Vulnerability of Sexual Minorities: Evidence from the US Household Pulse Survey," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(2), pages 1-74, April.
    7. Justin Denney & Bridget Gorman, 2014. "Introduction: Population Perspectives on Sexual Minorities," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(4), pages 479-484, August.
    8. Bridget Gorman & Justin Denney & Hilary Dowdy & Rose Medeiros, 2015. "A New Piece of the Puzzle: Sexual Orientation, Gender, and Physical Health Status," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(4), pages 1357-1382, August.
    9. Hughes, Tonda & Szalacha, Laura A. & McNair, Ruth, 2010. "Substance abuse and mental health disparities: Comparisons across sexual identity groups in a national sample of young Australian women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 824-831, August.
    10. Maalouf, Maher & Trafalis, Theodore B., 2011. "Robust weighted kernel logistic regression in imbalanced and rare events data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 168-183, January.
    11. Paine, Emily Allen, 2018. "Embodied disruption: “Sorting out” gender and nonconformity in the doctor's office," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 352-358.
    12. Eun Ju Cho & Jeong-Hoon Lee & Yuri Cho & Yun Bin Lee & Jeong-Ju Yoo & Minjong Lee & Dong Hyeon Lee & Su Jong Yu & Yoon Jun Kim & Jung-Hwan Yoon & Hyo-Suk Lee, 2015. "Comparison of the Efficacy of Entecavir and Tenofovir in Nucleos(T)ide Analogue-Experienced Chronic Hepatitis B Patients," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-10, June.
    13. Wei Wang & Shou‐En Lu & Jerry Q. Cheng & Minge Xie & John B. Kostis, 2022. "Multivariate survival analysis in big data: A divide‐and‐combine approach," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 852-866, September.
    14. Bethany G. Everett & Jarron Saint Onge & Stefanie Mollborn, 2016. "Effects of Minority Status and Perceived Discrimination on Mental Health," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 35(4), pages 445-469, August.
    15. Alexa Solazzo & Bridget Gorman & Justin Denney, 2020. "Does Sexual Orientation Complicate the Relationship Between Marital Status and Gender With Self-rated Health and Cardiovascular Disease?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(2), pages 599-626, April.
    16. Collins, Alexandra B. & Boyd, Jade & Cooper, Hannah L.F. & McNeil, Ryan, 2019. "The intersectional risk environment of people who use drugs," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 234(C), pages 1-1.
    17. Wang, Jianrong & Anand, Smriti & Li, Hui & Du, Wei, 2022. "Marriage equality for everyone? The business case for same sex marriage legislation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 190-202.
    18. Park, Hyun Joon & Francisco, Sara Chari & Pang, M. Rosemary & Peng, Lulu & Chi, Guangqing, 2023. "Exposure to anti-Black Lives Matter movement and obesity of the Black population," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 316(C).
    19. Chau, Nancy H. & Qin, Yu & Zhang, Weiwen, 2016. "Leader Networks and Transaction Costs: A Chinese Experiment in Interjurisdictional Contracting," IZA Discussion Papers 9641, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Jennifer R. Pharr & Lung-Chang Chien & Maxim Gakh & Jason D. Flatt & Krystal Kittle & Emylia Terry, 2022. "Moderating Effect of Community and Individual Resilience on Structural Stigma and Suicidal Ideation among Sexual and Gender Minority Adults in the United States," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-13, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:272:y:2021:i:c:s0277953621000630. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.