North-west England has the highest LGB+ death rate in England and Wales when compared to the straight population, new ONS data has shown.
The rate of LGB+ deaths in the north-west was 40% higher than its heterosexual population whereas it was only 31% higher in England and Wales.
London was the region with the smallest disparity between LGB+ and straight deaths with LGB+ death rates being 23% higher than its straight population.
Moreover, the LGB+ death rate from cancer was 19% higher than for the heterosexual population in north-west England when compared to it being 12% higher for England and Wales.
The region with lowest disparity between LGB+ deaths and straight deaths from cancer was London with a disparity of 2%, compared to a disparity of 23% in north-east England – the highest in the country.
Tom Montrose-Moss, head of insight and performance at the LGBT Foundation, said: “one of the key indicators of health, more generally, is deprivation.
“And Manchester in particular, has some of the highest rates of deprivation of anywhere in the country.”
The total population of the north-west has a higher death rate than England and Wales and has the highest disparity in death rates between straight and LGB+ populations of any region.
In the north-west, age-standardised death rates were higher in LGB+ people than in straight people for all causes of death.
For LGB+ people in the north-west, the total age-standardised death rate was 1,200 per 100,000 of the population whereas it was 900 for heterosexual people.
For England and Wales, the age-standardised death rate for LGB+ people was 980 and the region with the lowest LGB+ death rate was London with 790.
Montrose-Moss said: “There are quite a lot of barriers to accessing primary care… lesbian and bi women are often told that they don’t need a cervical screening, when in actual fact they do.
“Roughly one in every 14 people that access our services are not registered with a GP.”
He said: “so let’s take cancer, for example… if you are either not registered with a GP practice or you’ve been treated really badly by a GP… you’re going to be more hesitant to go to the GP to get it checked.”
In the north-west, drug-poisoning death rates are higher in the LGB+ community, with a 153% increase on drug-poisoning death rates in heterosexual people.
Montrose-Moss said that opiates are not as widely used by LGB+ people as they are in the straight population, with other drugs such as MKAT, GHB, and methamphetamines being more prominent.
He said that recovery programmes tended to focus on opiate usage and – as a result – LGB+ people do not feel seen.
He said: “In recovery services, sometimes a 12-step program is quite often associated with religious institutions, which doesn’t have a positive history with queer communities.”
Lizzie, a member of the LGB+ community in Manchester, said that they were not surprised by the north-west having the highest LGB+ death rate in England and Wales when compared to its straight population.
Lizzie said of Manchester: “It’s a city with a lot of deprivation, and I always feel like London cuts funding to the North before it will cut funding to itself.”
As well as facing deprivation, they also talked of the oppression of living as an LGB+ person living in the north-west.
Lizzie said: “It just feels so oppressive to exist.
“It is a reality that you’re looking over your shoulder on public transport or people are staring at you.”
They said it was somewhat of a relief that this ONS data shows the higher rates of LGB+ mortality because it confirms what many in the community know to be true.
They said: “what I’m realizing when I speak to you is it’s [oppression of the LGB+ community] just kind of unseen but devastating.”
Self-inflicted deaths, often caused by poor mental health, have a higher rate in the LGB+ population than among straight people in the north-west.
Lizzie said she thought that there was a link between this and the higher levels of deprivation and oppression in the LGB+ community in the north-west.
Featured image: LGBTQ+ pride flag. Source: Andrew LeBlanc via Flickr. www.quotecatalog.com/quotes/inspirational
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