Sexual Orientation Differences in Cervical Cancer Prevention among a Cohort of U.S. Women

Intersecting identities and cancer screening

“…Their study shows that individuals who identify as a sexual minority are significantly less likely to have ever undergone cervical cancer screening in comparison with heterosexual individuals; furthermore, although most individuals who identify as a sexual minority are less likely to undergo screening for cervical cancer, regardless of their racial/ethnic backgrounds, those identifying as both Hispanic and a sexual minority have the lowest odds of ever undergoing cervical cancer screening in comparison with non-Hispanic White heterosexual individuals. The finding that sexual minority status is associated with low rates of cervical cancer screening concurs with other studies [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] and highlights the need to better understand cervical cancer screening practices among individuals who identify as a sexual minority so that we can address this disparity and improve cervical cancer screening in this population.…”

Partner-Level and Sexual Networking Factors Are Associated With Vaccine-Type and Nonvaccine-Type Human Papillomavirus Infection After Vaccine Introduction in Young Women

“…Our finding that having a new female sex partner was associated with a higher risk of vaccine-type HPV in both vaccinated and unvaccinated women raises concern about the risk of HPV-associated cancers among sexual minority women. Compared with heterosexual women, sexual minority women may be less aware of their risk of HPV, less likely to practice safer sexual behaviors, less likely to discuss safer sex practices with partners, and less likely to obtain a Papanicolaou test 22,24 . Additional research is needed to determine what drives these differences, although previous work suggests that they may be influenced by misconceptions regarding STI transmission in female same-sex partnerships and sexual orientation disparities in sex education and in medical care 25 .…”

“…The few studies that have examined HPV infection among sexual minority women have demonstrated disparities by sexual orientation. Solazzo and colleagues 22 found that women reporting that they were heterosexual but had same-sex partners, were mostly heterosexual, or were bisexual had higher odds of HPV infection compared with completely heterosexual women, whereas lesbian women had lower odds of HPV infection. Reiter and McRee 23 similarly reported that bisexual women and women who reported partners of both sexes had higher odds of HPV infection in univariable analyses, whereas lesbian women and women who reported only same-sex partners had lower odds of HPV infection in multivariable analyses.…”

The association of sexual orientation with prostate, breast, and cervical cancer screening and diagnosis.

“…To date, there is little data on how SO impacts sex-speci c screening of prevalent cancers. There have been a handful of studies demonstrating LGBs have lower utilization of CC and PCa screening [22][23]. There are some data from BC studies showing inconsistent results regarding whether LGB women had higher risks than heterosexual women, mostly because these studies were relatively small [24].…”