WASHINGTON — Gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans are more prone to have underlying health conditions that could put them at higher risk of severe COVID-19, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study on Thursday.
Researchers had difficulty collecting data on those groups, and the CDC is now recommending that public health departments begin tracking the effects of COVID-19 on what the study refers to as sexual minority populations.
In November, the CDC gathered advocacy and health care organizations in listening sessions across the United States and discovered “major concern” was widespread throughout the LGBTQ community that information about sexual orientation and gender identity is not standard in COVID-19 data collection systems.
“This data gap underscores the need to extend COVID-19 surveillance and other studies to include measures of sexual orientation and gender identity,” the study concludes.
The analysis found that multiple underlying conditions — including asthma, cancer, heart disease, COPD, hypertension, kidney disease, smoking, obesity and stroke — are more prevalent among lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals than heterosexual men and women, in the overall population as well as within specific racial and ethnic groups.
Researchers looked at 11 underlying conditions that could lead to more severe cases of COVID-19. “None of the 11 conditions studied was more prevalent among heterosexual persons than among members of sexual minority groups,” the study said.
Underlying health conditions among sexual minorities within Black and Hispanic populations — communities that have already been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic — “is of particular concern,” the study said.
“Persons who are members of both sexual minority and racial/ethnic minority groups might therefore experience a convergence of distinct social, economic, and environmental disadvantages that increase chronic disease disparities and the risk for adverse COVID-19–related outcomes,” the study said.
The study is based on a collection of data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a 2017-2019 program that gathered population health surveys across all 50 states, many of which opted to include questions on sexual orientation.
California was among the earliest states to begin collecting sexual orientation data in its COVID-19 database, according to the CDC, beginning that effort in July. Several state and local public health departments do not ask about sexual orientation.
Without a national tracking system or federal data, the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the United States, began using available information in its own effort to monitor the effects of COVID-19 on sexual minorities beginning last April.
Alphonso David, president of the HRC, said their ongoing study looks at the prevalence of smoking, diabetes, asthma and HIV among LGBTQ individuals and how it would affect the course of a COVID-19 diagnosis.
“The numbers are pretty staggering,” David said. “LGBTQ people have been disproportionately impacted and have higher health risks than other communities.”
Without thorough national data, the CDC said the conclusions it could draw from its own findings were limited. The study also notes that the number of respondents who identified as transgender or nonbinary was too small to draw any reliable comparisons.
The CDC said its recommendation to increase data collection on the effects of COVID-19 on sexual minorities is consistent with President Joe Biden’s executive action from his second day in office, which directed government agencies to “enhance data collection” for current and future “high-consequence public health threats.”
David told McClatchy that the HRC had been in touch with senior Biden administration officials, including domestic policy adviser Susan Rice, since the transition, encouraging them to increase the collection of health data.
“The importance of collecting data goes to the core of whether or not the federal government knows that we exist, and whether the federal government is actually providing resources and services for the LGBTQ community,” David said.
