Gays In The News: Cigarettes & Alcohol

Objectives Information about the health behaviours of minority groups is essential for addressing health inequalities. We evaluated the association among lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) sexual orientation identity and smoking and alcohol use in young people in England...

Results LGB identity was reported by 3.1% of participants (55 gay, 33 lesbian, 35 bisexual male, 111 bisexual female), 3.5% when adjusting for the survey design. Adjusting for a range of covariates, identification as lesbian/gay was found to be associated with smoking (OR=2.23, 95% CI 1.42 to 3.51), alcohol drinking >2 days/week (OR=1.99, 95% CI 1.25 to 3.17) and RSOD (OR=1.80, 95% CI 1.13 to 2.86) more than weekly. Bisexual identity was associated with smoking history (OR=1.84, 95% CI 1.30 to 2.61) but not alcohol drinking >2 days/week (OR=1.20, 95% CI 0.79 to 1.81) or RSOD (OR=1.04, 95% CI 0.71 to 2.86).

Conclusions In a sample of more than 7600 young people aged 18/19 years in England, lesbian/gay identity is associated with cigarette smoking, drinking alcohol frequency and RSOD [binge drinking]. Bisexual identity is associated with smoking but not RSOD or frequent alcohol drinking. 

British Medical Journal.

Some young gay men like to smoke.
Some young gay men like to drink.
Thanks for that!