New data has revealed something the UK has never seen before: clear evidence that sexual minority people die earlier, and at higher rates, than their straight or heterosexual peers.
For the first time, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published overall mortality rates by sexual orientation in England and Wales. The findings come from a new bulletin that links voluntary sexual orientation data collected in the 2021 census with death registrations between March 2021 and November 2024. The linkage was possible for people with valid NHS identification numbers, allowing researchers to examine patterns of death across a population of nearly 29 million adults.
