Twenty years of public health research: inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations.
OBJECTIVE
This study determined to what extent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations have been studied over the past 20 years of public health research.


METHODS
From MEDLINE English-language articles on human subjects published between 1980 and 1999, I identified articles that included LGBT individuals. The abstracts were analyzed with a coding procedure that categorized the content by topic, sexual orientation, and race/ethnicity.


RESULTS
LGBT issues were addressed by 3777 articles, or 0.1% of all Medline articles; 61% of the articles were disease-specific, and 85% omitted reference to race/ethnicity. Research unrelated to sexually transmitted diseases addressed lesbians and gay men with similar frequency, whereas bisexual persons were less frequently considered, and the least amount of research focused on transgender individuals.


CONCLUSIONS
Findings supported that LGBT issues have been neglected by public health research and that research unrelated to sexually transmitted diseases is lacking.
Boehmer
Ulrike
U
Ulrike Boehmer is with Boston University, School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA. boehmer@bu.edu
D015706:Bibliometrics; D001727:Bisexuality; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006716:Homosexuality; D006801:Humans; D016239:MEDLINE; D008297:Male; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D011634:Public Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012106:Research / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019529:Sexuality / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*