Mental Health: Unwell

Lesbians, gays and bisexuals are more likely to have long-standing mental health problems and are twice as likely to have had bad experiences with their GP.

In one of the biggest surveys of homosexuals in England, researchers from Cambridge University found that 12 per cent of lesbian women and almost 19 per cent of bisexual women reported mental health problems, compared with six per cent of heterosexual women.

Meanwhile 11 per cent of gay men and 15 per cent of bisexual men reported problems, compared to five per cent of heterosexual men.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual men and women were 50 per cent more likely than heterosexuals to report negative experiences with primary care services, according to the study which was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine...

The Independent.

For a change here's an LGBT survey that seems fairly reliable; it wasn't commissioned or conducted by anyone with a vested (financial) interest in talking up a problem (as far as I know), and it used previous data from 27,000 self-identified gay people who took part in the 2010 English General Practice Patient Survey. 

ie They didn't just throw a thing on Twitter or the internet saying; 'We're doing a survey about [insert name of thing]...', thinking those who'd respond to a survey about said thing would be in anyway representative. 

Oh, and congratulations to whoever at the Indy chose to illustrate this story with a rainbow flag a-fluttering - a choice every bit as original as it was inspired!

More Rainbow-twattery: Totnes, Devon gets a rainbow crossing! Rainbow Playstation auctioned! Copenhagen renames a square Rainbow Square! Englishman plants rainbow flag on Russian mountain! Take that Putin!