Giving Compass' Take:

• Jessica Colarossi reports that research has found that LGBT people - especially women - fare worse than their straight counterparts when it comes to cancer. 

• How can funders work to close these healthcare gaps? 

• Read about strategies for funders working to support LGBTQ health. 

One in three Americans will face a cancer diagnosis in their lifetimes. Ulrike Boehmer, a researcher at the Boston University School of Public Health who studies health disparities in LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people, says that cancer poses a particularly dangerous threat for members of the LGBT community, especially women.

Post-cancer care is extremely important to prevent recurrences, detect early warning signs, and screen for long-term effects of cancer treatments, making these findings particularly troubling, says Boehmer, an associate professor of community health sciences. The end result? LGB women have poorer physical and mental quality of life post cancer.

Boehmer’s study in the journal Cancer adds to growing evidence that suggests LGBT people face numerous challenges in healthcare settings, often facing stigma, discrimination, and insensitivity. For the LGBT community, cancer poses numerous threats, in particular. Compared to the national average, people who identify as LGBT have substantially higher rates of obesity, smoking, and alcohol use—all known risk factors for cancer. Additionally, there is a higher risk of breast cancer if a woman has never had biological children; compared to heterosexual women, lesbians and bisexual women are three times and two times more likely to never have biological children, respectively.

Despite the intersection of these cancer risks, there is a severe dearth of data on LGBT people and cancer, an issue Boehmer has studied since the early 1990s.

Read the full article about LGBT cancer experiences by Jessica Colarossi at Futurity.