Straight women’s and lesbians’ health compared

Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 cause of death of all women, but in the first study… Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 cause of death of all women, but in the first study of its kind, Pitt researchers are finding out if sexual orientation makes a difference in a woman’s risk for heart disease.

Pitt epidemiologists Deborah J. Aaron, Nina Markovic and Michelle Danielson will conduct a study titled “Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors and Sexual Identity in Women.” The team will examine the differences in the prevalence and patterns of risk factors in cardiovascular disease of 500 self-identified lesbians and 500 heterosexual women in the Allegheny County Region.

At a clinical site at the Magee-Womens Research Institute at Pitt, researchers will gather information about the participants’ height, weight and blood to check for heart disease, along with collecting information about other risk factors.

Markovic said the 1,000 participants in the study will all be over 35 years old, the age when the risk for cardiovascular disease becomes particularly significant and will be matched for ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The study will be conducted for four years, and is funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Institutes of Health.

Aaron said as a group of public health researchers, one of the biggest issues they face is dealing with health disparities between different groups. He added that gays and lesbians have not received much attention with respect to health.

Markovic explained that they developed their study after Suzanne Haynes hypothesized about factors that might increase lesbians’ risk for breast cancer. Haynes was a researcher at the National Cancer Institute and is now a senior scientist at the Office of Women’s Health, Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. The hypothesized risk factors include the fact that lesbians tend to have a higher body weight, exercise less, and smoke and drink more than their heterosexual counterparts. Also, lesbians often do not have children or have them much later in life than heterosexual women.

In 1999 and 2000, Aaron, Danielson and Markovic conducted a survey of 1,000 self-identified lesbians in the greater Pittsburgh Area about these original risk factors in relation to cardiovascular disease. Many of these women were in their early 30s, and unlike what Haynes had hypothesized, the team did not see many cases of breast cancer, according to Markovic.

Their survey did reveal that lesbians do tend to have higher body weight, are more educated, have fewer children and have them later in life, and do smoke and drink more, but they are more likely to engage in physical activity than heterosexual women.

Though the source of this trend in lesbian lifestyle habits has not been identified, Markovic speculated a cohort factor may be involved. She said 30 years ago, lesbians may have been less integrated into the social scene so they would meet one another at strictly lesbian bars.

“When you go to a bar there are more people drinking and smoking than if you were to go to another source of women in general,” Markovic said.

She added that the new generation of lesbians might be part of a different culture than the one in which their predecessors grew up.

The goals of this new study are to get a larger sample of women to analyze and evaluate the different factors to see how they affect lesbians’ overall risk for heart disease and compare their risk levels to those of heterosexual women.

The Center for Research on Health and Sexual Orientation is part of Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health and is co-directed by Markovic and Anthony Silvestre, a professor in Pitt’s microbiology department. The Center focuses on inspiring and engaging in research on sexual minorities’ health and wellness issues, forming networks and exchanging resources among researchers and non-researcher and providing information for the development of policy, services and education concerning sexual minorities.

“At this point we are probably one of the largest and most active groups of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender researchers,” Markovic said.