Young British Gay and Bi Men Six Times More Likely to Attempt Suicide

Young gay and bisexual humankinds in the United kingdom government are six times more likely to attempt suicide than their equivalents over the age of 45.

That shocking number merely goes up for those who are black, poor, or less educated, researchers at the London School of Hygiene& Tropical Medicine( LSHTM) procured. The team applied virtually 6,000 responses to the Stonewall Gay and Bisexual Mens Health Survey( PDF) to analyze how age, ethnicity, income, and other factors affected depression, nervousnes, and suicidality.

Their findings , now published in the Journal of Public Health , show how additional stressors can compound an already alarming hazard of suicide in the LGBT community.

Minority groups are usually thought to be more homogeneous then we are really are, when, in fact, there is great deviation in the area of health and life situations among this group, Dr. Ford Hickson, a public health professor at LSHTM and lead author of the study, was indicated in a press release. Whats clear is that health inequalities among gay and bisexual humankinds mirror those working in the broader society.

Age and racial differences were among the most dramatic variations in their sample. Virtually 6 percent of gay and bisexual humankinds ages 26 and under reported a suicide strive in the last year as is comparable to merely 1 percent of those 45 or over.

Black gay and bisexual humankinds were also found to be five times more likely to have attempted suicide than their white peers and twice as likely to suffer from depression.

This is possibly because men are better able to cope with homophobia the older they are, or if they are relatively privileged in other areas of their lives, Dr. Hickson said.

In addition to hypothesizing that older humankinds may have developed better tools for dealing with racism, the authors note that the age gap in suicide hazard is congruent with homophobic abuse and assault being very disproportionately experienced by the young. Younger LGBT people must endure bullying in schools, for example, while older people generally do not.

As the study notes, broad disparities in suicide hazard between the LGBT population and the general population are generally explained in terms of the Meyer minority stress framework, which posits a relationship between experiences of social marginalization and poor health outcomes.

But this broader assumption can sometimes be applied in a way that glosses over the many demographic differences within larger gender and sex minorities. By analyzing potential impacts of individual social factors, the authors of the LSHTM study were able to show that gay and bisexual men mental health issues is not a monolith.

For instance, bisexual humankinds generally had worse mental health issues outcomes than their gay peers, likely as a result of the specific stigma around people who are attracted to more than one gender. And virtually 30 percent of gay and bi all those people who left school at age 16 reported suffered by depression, while merely 17 percent of those who had university studies reported the same.

Some differences were subtle but still significant. For instance, Asian gay and bisexual humankinds were more likely to suffer from depression than their white equivalents but less likely to have self-harmed or attempted suicide.

Poor mental health is not evenly distributed across race, income, or education, said Dr. Hickson of the studys implications. We must ensure that access to life-changing support services are targeted to where they are needed most.

In the meantime, Dr. Hicksons analyze does give hope for one subset of gay and bisexual humankinds: those who live with boyfriends or husbands.

Living with a male collaborator was associated with half the odds of depression, three-quarters the odds of nervousnes, a third the odds of suicide strive, and two-fifths the odds of self-harm relative to humankinds living alone, such studies procured. Living with someone other than a male collaborator was not associated with protective effects.