Health and professional characteristics of lesbian and heterosexual women physicians.

Objective: To determine whether lesbian and heterosexual female physicians differ on health, professional, and demographic characteristics.

Methods: The Women Physicians' Health Study (WPHS), a mailed questionnaire sample survey, was completed by 4501 women physicians (59% response rate), of whom 115 were identified as lesbians and 4177 were identified as heterosexuals. Lesbian and heterosexual were defined by response to items about self-identification and sexual behavior. Dependent variables are self-reported health status and behavior and professional characteristics.

Results: Lesbians weighed more and were more likely to report histories of depression or sexual abuse, family histories of alcoholism, and orientation-related workplace harassment (all p = .01). On the other hand, they were more likely to comply with mammogram screening (p < .01).

Conclusions: Many health status and behavior differences found in other studies of lesbian and heterosexual women were less pronounced here. This may be because the population of female physicians is more homogeneous, but perhaps also because the size of our lesbian sample was limited (n = 115). However, even with the buffer of high socioeconomic status and medical education, lesbian physicians seem to have a somewhat higher cumulative risk of disease compared to their heterosexual female colleagues.