Disparities by Sexual Orientation Persist for Major Depressive Episode and Substance Abuse or Dependence: Findings from a National Probability Study of Adults in the United States.

Purpose: This study updates psychiatric epidemiological research by providing recent prevalence estimates of major depression and alcohol and illicit drug abuse or dependence among sexual minority (SM) adults.

Methods

Using the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, we estimated prevalence differences between SM and heterosexual adults, and within SM subgroups, with logistic regression models.

Results

Bisexual adults faced an increased burden across all outcomes compared with other SM adults. Gay males had the highest prevalence of alcohol and illicit drug abuse or dependence.

Conclusions

Future research must consider sex differences within SM subgroups for development of targeted interventions.