Bisexual Women Are Three Times More Likely To Attempt Suicide

A recent study by researchers at the University of York and ICES found that bisexual women were more than three times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual women.

This landmark study, which combined population-based survey data and health records of more than 123,000 people, also found that both fatal and non-fatal suicide-related behavior (SRB) events were twice as likely to occur in homosexual men and lesbians compared to heterosexuals. These findings highlight the imperative of improving mental health support within the LGBTQ+ community.

“We wanted to better characterize differences in suicidal behavior by sexual orientation and gender,” says lead author Antony Cham, assistant professor of health at York University, Canadian research chair for Population and Health Data Sciences, and adjunct research fellow at ICES. “Previous research on attempted suicide has mostly relied on self-reported data from surveys, which means that people are too ill to participate or don’t have information about those who die by suicide.”

Published in American Journal of Psychiatrythis study examined Ontario participants in the Canadian Community Health Study, which was associated with anonymous administrative health data such as emergency room visits and hospitalizations due to non-fatal self-harm and fatal suicide incidents from 2002 to 2019.

Researchers, including University of York Postdoctoral Fellows Gabriel John Dussin and Chunga Kim, found that:

• The overall prevalence of one or more SRB events was approximately 2% in heterosexuals, 5% in gay/lesbian individuals, and 8% in bisexual individuals.
• Persons of sexual minorities had an increased risk of SRB events, ranging from 2.10-fold to 4.23-fold compared to heterosexuals.
• After adjusting for age and sex, the risk of SRB events was more than three times greater in bisexual individuals, and this risk was most pronounced in bisexual women.

“Bisexual women’s higher risk may be due to the greater discrimination they face within the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the higher violence, trauma and caregiving burdens that bisexual women may experience in heterosexual relationships,” Cham said.

One of the limitations of this study was the lack of data on nonbinary individuals and sexual orientations such as asexual and queer. Nevertheless, this is the first study to use a large representative sample associated with medical records, which improves the generalizability of our findings to other regions and populations.

“This study clearly shows that better funding, policies and programs are needed to address LGBTQ+ suicide risk,” said Cham. “More training is also needed for health workers to address LGBTQ+ suicide risk. Additionally, we want to encourage hospitals and clinics to collect sexual orientation data as part of routine patient care.”

Cham also notes that the privatization of health care is accelerating, and that there is a need to increase publicly funded mental health support, not just for LGBTQ+ people, but across the board.

Reference: Gender Disparities in Suicidal Behavior: Sexual Orientation Disparities in Suicidal Behavior: A Retrospective Cohort Study Using Linked Health Care Data, Antony Cham, Ph.D., Chunga Kim, Ph.D., Andrew Nielsen, Ph.D., Gabriel John Dusing, Ph.D., Patricia Ocampo, Ph.D., Flora I. Matheson, Ph.D., Lucy Barker, M.D., Simone Vigod, M.D., Vicki Ling, MS. Kinwah Fung MSc Sidney Kennedy, MD, June 7, 2023, American Journal of Psychiatry.
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.20220763

This finding is consistent with the authors’ views Related research published in March pro swanThe study found that both sexual minority status and living in a resource-poor community with inadequate health care access were independent risk factors for suicidal behavior. Future research should explore interventions that improve the mental health of LGBTQ+ people while addressing social determinants of health, such as neighborhood-level disparities and barriers to healthcare.