Shahab L, et al. - The relationship amongst tobacco and hazardous alcohol use and sexual orientation and whether such an association could be clarified by other sociodemographic qualities evaluated in this study. Researchers found that higher rates of tobacco use among sexual minority men and women appear to be attributable to other sociodemographic factors in England. Higher rates of hazardous alcohol use among sexual minority men may also be attributable to these factors, whereas this is not the case for sexual minority women.

Methods

• For this study, they designed a cross-sectional household survey.
• This study was conducted in 2014-2016 at England, UK.
• In this study, representative English population sample (pooled n=43,866) were participated.

Results

• Because of interactions between sexual orientation and gender for substance use, investigations were stratified by gender.
• Tobacco utilization prevalence was significantly higher among lesbian/gay (women: 24.9%, 95% CI 19.2% to 32.6%; men: 25.9%, 95% CI 21.3% to 31.0%) and bisexual participants (women: 32.4%, 95% CI 25.9% to 39.6%; men: 30.7%, 95% CI 23.7% to 30.7%) and significantly lower for prefer-not-to-say participants in women (15.5%, 95% CI 13.5% to 17.8%) but not men (22.7%, 95%CI 20.3% to 25.3%) compared with heterosexual participants (women: 17.5%, 95% CI 17.0% to 18.0%; men: 20.4%, 95% CI 19.9% to 21.0%; p<0.001 for omnibus test).
• Similarly, hazardous alcohol use was significantly more prevalent for lesbian/gay (women: 19.0%, 95% CI 14.0% to 25.3%; men: 30.0%, 25.2%-35.3%) and bisexual participants (women: 24.4%, 95% CI 18.7% to 31.3%; men: 24.3%, 95% CI 17.9% to 32.1%) and lower for prefer-not-to-say participants (women: 4.1%, 95% CI 3.0% to 5.4%; men: 13.7%; 95% CI 11.8% to 16.0%) compared with heterosexuals (women: 8.3%, 95% CI 7.9% to 8.7%; men: 18.4%, 95% CI 17.9% to 18.9%; p<0.001 for omnibus test).
• However, after adjusting for sociodemographic confounders, tobacco use was similar across all sexual orientation groups among both women and men.
• By contrast, sexual orientation differences in hazardous alcohol use remained even after adjustment among women but not for bisexual and gay men.