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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Anna Bawden

LGB+ people in England and Wales ‘much’ more likely to die by suicide than straight people

Office for National Statistics United Kingdom Disease
Young man looking out of a window
The study found that people who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or ‘other’ sexual orientation had 1.3 times the risk of dying than those identifying as straight or heterosexual. Photograph: Design Pics Inc/REX

LGB+ people are much more likely to die by taking their own lives, drug overdoses and alcohol-related disease than their straight counterparts, the first official figures of their kind show.

The 2021 census in England and Wales asked people aged 16 and above about their sexual orientation for the first time. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has now analysed differences in causes of mortality from March 2021 to November 2024. The ONS research uses the acronym LGB+ rather than LGBTQ+.

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