LGBTQ+ Aging in America

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People over 50 are growing older in a very different environment for LGBTQ+ people than the one they grew up in. Now, a new University of Michigan poll looks at what that means for both people over 50 who are LGBTQ+, and those who are not.

Transcript 

Host:

Welcome to Health Lab, your destination for news and stories about the future of healthcare.

Today, we’re discussing findings from a new U-M poll that looks into aging-related challenges faced by people over 50 who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, and also how people over 50 who are not members of the LGBTQ+ community relate to people who are.

It’s no secret that people over 50 are aging in a very different environment for LGBTQ+ people than the one they grew up in, because of changes in society, laws and culture in recent decades. But the poll reflects ongoing challenges for LGBTQ+ people over 50.

So, what did the poll show?

First off, the poll showed that most non-LGBTQ+ people over 50 have LGBTQ+ friends, family, coworkers or neighbors.

The poll also found that 69% of non-LGBTQ+ people over 50 have at least one personal connection to a person of any age who is LGBTQ+ - and just a note here, LGBTQ+ is an umbrella term for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and other gender or sexual minority communities, and includes a diverse spectrum of identities.

Among non-LGBTQ+ people over 50 who know an LGBTQ+ person, 56% say that they count an LGBTQ+ person as a friend, while 50% say they have a relative who is LGBTQ+.

Additionally, 15% say they have a coworker, and 10% have a neighbor, who is open about being LGBTQ+.

However, the same poll finds that LGBTQ+ people over 50 face different rates of age-related challenges than people over 50 who are not LGBTQ+.

The poll found that LGBTQ+ people over 50 are more likely to report fair or poor mental health, activity-limiting disabilities, isolation and lack of companionship than people over 50 who do not identify as LGBTQ+.

It also showed that people over 50 who identify as LGBTQ+ are less likely than others their age to feel confident that they will receive support from multiple sources as they age, and they are more likely to report experiencing discrimination in health care settings.

These findings have implications not only for members of the LGBTQ+ community, but also for health care and social service providers, as well as for policymakers.

Kristi Gamarel, Ph.D., an Associate Professor at the U-M School of Public Health and IHPI member who worked on the poll says, “LGBTQ+ adults are part of the families and friendships of most older Americans. LGBTQ+ older adults nevertheless continue to face significant disparities, especially in health care, at a moment when supports built for them are being scaled back.” She goes on, “Continued national data on this generation is essential.”

So let’s look at more of the data:

The poll also found that LGBTQ+ people over 50 were more likely than non-LGBTQ+ adults to view local health care and social services as welcoming to older LGBTQ+ adults.

In all, 71% of LGBTQ+ adults over 50 said their local health care services are welcoming to older LGBTQ+ adults, and 58% said their local social services are welcoming.

By comparison, when non-LGBTQ+ adults over 50 were asked if such services in their area are welcoming to older LGBTQ+ adults, only about 40% said yes.

However, LGBTQ+ adults aged 50 and older were less likely than non-LGBTQ+ adults to feel confident in the support they will receive as they age.

Specifically, LGBTQ+ adults over 50 were less likely than non-LGBTQ+ adults to feel confident that as they grow older they will receive social support from organizations or resources in their community with a ratio of 63% vs. 77% with their non-LGBTQ+ age peers, needed health care services at a rate of 81% vs. 86%, and support from family and friends at a rate of 77% vs. 90%.

Gamarel and U-M Population Studies Center postdoctoral fellow Wesley Correll-King, Ph.D., worked with the National Poll on Health Aging team to develop the questions and analyze the    findings.

Correll-King says, “Older LGBTQ+ adults have lived through decades of social and political change impacting their communities. Current policy changes and those on the horizon could impact their confidence in accessing health care or community resources as they age.”

The poll also showed significant differences in self-rated health and social measures. Nineteen percent of LGBTQ+ adults over 50 rated their mental health as fair or poor, compared with 11% of non-LGBTQ+ adults.

More than half of LGBTQ+ adults over 50 - 56% - reported having a disability that limits their daily activities, compared with 41% of non-LGBTQ+ adults over 50, despite the fact that the LGBTQ+ group in the poll was younger on average.

Experiencing discrimination in health care settings was much more common among LGBTQ+ adults, with 12% saying they had been treated unfairly or been discriminated against while receiving care in the last year, compared with 5% of non-LGBTQ+ adults.

The poll also found notable group differences in social connections. While 8% of non-LGBTQ+ adults over 50 said they often felt a lack of companionship in the last year, the rate was more than twice as high (at 20%) among LGBTQ+ adults over 50. The rate of often feeling isolated from others was also three times higher among LGBTQ+ adults, at 18% versus 6% among their non-LGBTQ+ peers.

Poll statistician Matthias Kirch, M.S., also notes that the LGBTQ+ adults in the poll sample were more likely than non-LGBTQ+ adults to report barriers to preventive care, dental care and mental health care.

There were also similar differences in these measures between the non-LGBTQ+ adults in the 50-64 age group and those over 65. While adults who openly identified as LGBTQ+ were much more likely to fall into the 50-64 age group, their barriers to care were higher across age groups, indicating that both age and LGBTQ+ identity influence access to care, Kirch says.

Poll director Jeffrey Kullgren, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., who is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at Michigan Medicine, said these findings suggest a need for health care providers to ask about their LGBTQ+ patients’ social support networks, and for health care organizations to reduce barriers to needed care.

Kullgren says, “Staying connected and encouraging more activities to foster social connections can in turn bolster mental health and overall well-being. At the same time, I also encourage providers to work to make their clinics welcoming and inclusive for all.”

The poll, based at the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, is supported by Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center. The poll team also gathered data from Michigan adults over age 50 through support from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, as part of the Michigan Poll on Healthy Aging.

Although the sample size of LGBTQ+ adults over 50 in Michigan was too small to show statistically significant differences in comparisons with the national sample, the team did observe differences between the broader Michigan sample and their peers in the rest of the nation.

Specifically, Michiganders over 50 who are not LGBTQ+ were less likely to say they know an LGBTQ+ person than people over 50 in the rest of the country at a rate of 64% vs. 69%.

Of the Michiganders over 50 who said they know at least one LGBTQ+ person, 57% said that person is a friend, and 52% said they have a relative who is LGBTQ+. In addition, 13% said they have a coworker who is LGBTQ+, and 6% said they have a neighbor who is.

There was no difference shown between the Michigan sample and the rest of the nation in the percentage of people agreeing that health services or social services in their area are welcoming to LGBTQ+ people over 50.

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