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Choosing "Something Else" as a Sexual Identity: Evaluating Response Options on the National Health Interview Survey
Michele J Eliason1, Carl G Streed2
11 Department of Health Education, San Francisco State University , San Francisco, California.
Purpose:
Researchers struggle to find effective ways to measure sexual and gender identities to determine whether there are health differences among subsets of the LGBTQ+ population.
Method:
This study examines responses on the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) sexual identity questions among 277 LGBTQ+ healthcare providers.
Results:
Eighteen percent indicated that their sexual identity was "something else" on the first question, and 57% of those also selected "something else" on the second question. Half of the genderqueer/gender variant participants and 100% of transgender-identified participants selected "something else" as their sexual identity.
Conclusion:
The NHIS question does not allow all respondents in LGBTQ+ populations to be categorized, thus we are potentially missing vital health disparity information about subsets of the LGBTQ+ population.
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