The Mental Health Age Gradient by Gender Identity
ResearchPosted on rand.org Jun 18, 2025Published in: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (2025). doi: 10.1007/s00127-025-02895-3
Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) 2017–2022 we estimated adjusted and unadjusted differences in self-reported number of poor mental health days (past month) between gender minority (GM) and cisgender adults. We document that the disparity is largest among younger individuals. Among 18- to 23-year-olds, GM adults report on average 14.5 days of poor mental health, compared to 6.3 days for cisgender individuals, yielding an unadjusted disparity of 8.2 days [95% CI: 7.15, 9.24]. This disparity decreases with age – among people over the age of 73, the observed difference was 1.7 days [95% CI: 0.13, 3.27].
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Document Details
- Copyright: Samuel Mann, Megan S. Schuler, Annaliese Paulson, Michael S. Dunbar
- Publisher: Springer Nature
- Availability: Non-RAND
- Year: 2025
- Pages: 3
- Document Number: EP-70954
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