New Health Insurance Findings from National Institutes of Health Reported (Measuring the Influence of Legally Recognized Partnerships on the Health…

New Health Insurance Findings from National Institutes of Health Reported (Measuring the Influence of Legally Recognized Partnerships on the Health and Well-Being of Same-Sex Couples: Utility of the California Health Interview Survey)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Managed Care Weekly Digest -- Current study results on Health Insurance have been published. According to news reporting from Bethesda, Maryland, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, "This study explored the utility of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) to compare health-related outcomes among gay men, lesbians, and heterosexuals who reported being in a legally recognized partnership. We regressed sexual identity and marriage/legally recognized partnership status on seven different outcomes related to health insurance coverage, medical services access and use, and general health and wellbeing using CHIS data collected between 2009 and 2013."

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from the National Institutes of Health, "There were 1432 respondents who identified as gay, lesbian, or homosexual, and 67,746 who identified as heterosexual. The percentage of participants who reported being married/ legally partnered was 54.06% for heterosexual women, 52.93% for heterosexual men, 38.83% for lesbians, and 23.56% for gay men. Legally partnered/married gay and lesbian respondents were more likely to have health insurance and use healthcare than their counterparts not in such partnerships; few trends were statistically significant. Gay men in legally recognized partnerships were more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to report continuous health insurance coverage, a usual medical care source, and at least one provider visit within the past 12 months. We found statistically significant poorer health status outcomes among lesbians in legally recognized partnerships compared to married heterosexual women. Lesbians in legally recognized partnerships did not fare as well as married heterosexual women. Gay men in legally recognized partnerships fared better than married heterosexual men on some measures. CHIS questionnaire structures limited our sample and analyses."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "We recommend that CHIS and other researchers ask partnered status-, marriage-, and sexual identity-related questions en bloc to ensure more robust representation, analyses, recommendations, and policy resolutions."

For more information on this research see: Measuring the Influence of Legally Recognized Partnerships on the Health and Well-Being of Same-Sex Couples: Utility of the California Health Interview Survey. LGBT Health, 2017;4(2):153-160. LGBT Health can be contacted at: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc, 140 Huguenot Street, 3RD Fl, New Rochelle, NY 10801, USA (see also Health Insurance).

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting W.N. Elwood, National Institutes of Health, Off Director, Strateg Initiat, Bethesda, MD 20892, United States. Additional authors for this research include V.L. Irvin, Q.K. Sun and N. Breen.

Keywords for this news article include: Bethesda, Maryland, United States, North and Central America, Health Insurance, National Institutes of Health.

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