Members of the LGBT community are at a higher risk of experiencing severe symptoms of COVID-19, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday.
According to the report, the CDC found that members of the LGBT community are more likely to have underlying health problems that put them at an increased risk of contracting the coronavirus and showing severe symptoms of the disease.
The report used data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2017-2019, a collection of health surveys that gathers demographic and health-related information from non-institutionalized U.S. residents over 18 to determine health disparities.
“When age, sex and year of research are adjusted, people from sexual minorities have higher prevalence than heterosexuals of self-reported cancer, kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease (including heart attack myocardial, angina or coronary heart disease), obesity, smoking, diabetes, asthma, hypertension and stroke “, states the report.
The report adds that racial and ethnic minority groups that are also members of the LGBT community are at an increased risk of having severe coronavirus symptoms compared to their heterosexual colleagues. In addition, members of the LGBT community are more likely to experience discrimination and stigmatization, which can increase the risk of falling ill and limit access to adequate health care, according to the agency.
“People who are members of sexual and racial / ethnic minority groups can therefore experience a convergence of distinct social, economic and environmental disadvantages that increase the disparities of chronic diseases and the risk of adverse outcomes related to COVID-19,” he concluded the report .
Since the early stages of the pandemic, the CDC has stated that those who have underlying health problems, including older and immunosuppressed adults, are at an increased risk of experiencing more severe symptoms and even death as a result of the coronavirus.
The agency also released data stating that black Americans are almost three times more likely than white Americans to die of coronavirus.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the country’s largest LGBT rights organization, released data in 2020 that reflect these findings from the CDC.
The report released by the organization states that members of the LGBT community are at greater risk of contracting the disease due to a number of factors, such as jobs with high exposure to COVID-19, wealth gap and lack of health coverage.
“This report states what LGBTQ advocates and organizations have always known: that our community is at greatest risk and disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 health crisis,” said HRH President Alphonso David. “It is critical that health disparities in marginalized communities they are fully captured by government data collection so that they can be dealt with quickly. ”
The authors of the CDC’s Thursday report said that the current “COVID-19 surveillance systems” do not capture information about sexual orientation and called for more data to be collected on the LGBT community and the coronavirus.