Mainly heterosexual, bisexual, or other?: The measurement of sexual minority status and its impact on analytic sample, demographic distribution and health outcomes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Sexual orientation has been measured in a wide variety of ways which reflect both theoretical and practical considerations. However, choice of sexual orientation measure and recoding strategy can impact analytic sample, as well as demographic and health profiles, in analyses of sexual minority populations. We aimed to examine how choice of sexual orientation dimension and recoding decisions impact estimates in the sexual minority population in two population-based studies in the UK.

Methods

We used data collected at age 17 (2018) in the UK Millennium Cohort Study and at sweep six (2012-13) and eight (2017-18) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the impact of choice of sexual orientation dimension (i.e. identity,

SUBMITTER: Tabor E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11414922 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature