Top Medical Journal: Same-Sex Marriage Makes Families Healthier
The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the oldest peer-reviewed medical journal in the world, last week published an article detailing how same-sex marriage makes entire families healthier.
There’s no need for intricate science here — although the article includes research from several studies — it’s just common sense, at least to marriage equality supporters.
LGBT people, according to a 2011 report, suffer higher levels of “physical and mental health outcomes than heterosexual and non-transgender populations, largely as a result of the stress caused by being a member of a stigmatized minority group or because of discrimination due to sexual orientation or gender nonconformity,” the NEJM reports.
Discriminatory environments and public policies stigmatize LGBT people and engender feelings of rejection, shame, and low self-esteem, which can negatively affect people’s health-related behavior as well as their mental health. LGBT people living in states that ban same-sex marriage, for instance, are more likely than their counterparts in other states to report symptoms of depression, anxiety, and alcohol use disorder.
The NEJM adds that “legalizing same-sex marriage (among other policies expanding protections) contributes to better health for LGBT people. For example, data from Massachusetts and California, respectively, indicate that same-sex marriage led to fewer mental health care visits and expenditures for gay men and that it reduced psychological distress among lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults in legally recognized same-sex relationships.”
Now for the common-sense part.
Legalizing same-sex marriage allows a spouse and the family’s children to be added to one spouse’s health care plan. Obviously, this increases access to healthcare, making it more likely all family members will get regular checkups and seek medical attention when necessary.
Daily Beast writer Russell Saunders, who is also a pediatrician, offers his own experience.
When I travel with my family, crossing the border into a state where my marriage isn’t legal is a significant stressor. If something should happen to my husband or me, would we be able to see each other in the hospital? Would we be able to make healthcare decisions for each other? When we took a vacation last year and it dawned on us that every place we were visiting was in a state with marriage equality, it alleviated a lot of anxiety.
In short, marriage equality, as Saunders writes, “is good for public health.”
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Image by Elvert Barnes via Flickr
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