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LGBTQ+ health: tackling potential health-care professionals’ bias

Nature Reviews Disease Primers volume 9, Article number: 1 (2023) Cite this article

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Sexual and gender minorities (SGM) people experience negative attitudes, stigma, denial of care or low-quality care from health-care providers, which contributes to health disparities. Increased awareness and adequate training of health-care professionals and students are required to reduce biases and barriers to timely and high-quality health care for SGM people.

According to the World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants of Health “social justice is a matter of life and death. It affects the way people live, their consequent chance of illness, and their risk of premature death”1. Frequent social stressors, such as victimization and discrimination, and lack of social justice often contribute to health inequities among sexual and gender minorities (SGM) people2. Sexual minority women seem to have an increased risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease, and fewer lifetime Pap tests3, and sexual minority men have an increased risk of sexually transmitted infections compared with their heterosexual counterparts4. SGM people have higher rates of smoking and heavy drinking5 and are facing a higher prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders6 compared with the general population. Despite the increased health risks, SGM people are less likely to access the care they need than non-SGM groups6. These inequities in health-care provision are mainly influenced by previous experiences of stigma and discrimination in health-care settings and inadequate knowledge or prejudice by health-care providers7.

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Fig. 1: Implicit bias and effects of anti-implicit bias training for health-care providers and medical students.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Monica Malta

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Monica Malta

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  1. Monica Malta
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Correspondence to Monica Malta.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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LGBTQ Health, Diversity & Inclusion: https://edhub.ama-assn.org/course/265

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Malta, M. LGBTQ+ health: tackling potential health-care professionals’ bias. Nat Rev Dis Primers 9, 1 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41572-022-00413-2

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