Telehealth use in 2022 among US adults by sexual orientation

To address a lack of research documenting telehealth use and experiences among sexual minority individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic and inform health care policies beyond the pandemic.

Secondary analysis of the 2022 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), a cross-sectional survey representative of US adults.

We estimated multivariable probit regressions to understand how sexual orientation was associated with reporting telehealth use, modality (video only, telephone only, both), and experiences, including the reason for, subject of most recent, and quality of the telehealth visit. We adjusted estimates based on respondents' self-reported demographics and health status. Analyses were weighted to represent the US adult population and used full information maximum likelihood to account for missing data.

Among all HINTS respondents, having a telehealth visit within the past year was more common among sexual minority respondents than heterosexual respondents. Among telehealth users, sexual minority respondents were more likely than heterosexual respondents to say that they used telehealth because it was convenient and minimized their exposure to illnesses and that the subject of the most recent telehealth visit was mental health. They were less likely to say the subject was minor/acute care. Modality use and quality were comparable between sexual minority respondents and heterosexual respondents.

The findings show greater demand for telehealth, especially for mental health care, among sexual minority adults. Knowledge of factors driving patterns in health care utilization within minoritized communities and the implications for both telehealth access and quality are necessary to create policies that have a broad positive impact.