“These further health disparities have been attributed to biphobia experienced within both mainstream and LGBTQIA communities”
BY ELLA GAUCI, IMAGE BY SHVETS PRODUCTION
A new study published in The Journal of Sex Research has found that bisexual women are four times more likely to suffer from long-term physical and mental health problems than heterosexual patients. Using data from Ipsos MORI’s 2015/16 English General Practice Patient Survey which covers over 830,000 adults, the researchers found that bisexual patients had a significantly worse quality of life than other LGB or heterosexual patients.
Lead author, Professor Carrie Llewellyn, from Brighton and Sussex medical school, wrote: “We found consistent evidence indicating worse overall health reported among people identifying as LGB compared to heterosexual samples, with bisexual people experiencing the worst outcomes.”
She continued: “Bisexual people had the poorest physical and mental health in this study, which may be due to the additional marginalisation of bisexual experience.”
But why is there such a large disparity between the health and quality of life of bisexual women and heterosexual patients of both genders?
Professor Llewellyn argued that “these further health disparities have been attributed to biphobia experienced within both mainstream and LGBTQIA communities, which contribute to minority stress in addition to the heteronormative influences that lesbian and gay people also experience.”
The data from this research revealed that as a whole LGB patients were more than twice as likely to report long-term physical and mental health problems than heterosexual peers. Llewellyn argued that “a better understanding of the different spectrum of health needs across LGBTQ+ subpopulations is required to provide adequate and equitable health care services for all.”
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