摘要:To determine whether sexual minorities have an earlier mortality than do heterosexuals, we investigated associations between sexual orientation assessed in the 2001 to 2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) and mortality in the 2011 NHANES-linked mortality file. Mortality follow-up time averaged 69.6 months after NHANES. By 2011, 338 individuals had died. Sexual minorities evidenced greater all-cause mortality than did heterosexuals after adjusting for demographic confounding. These effects generally disappeared with further adjustment for NHANES-detected health and behavioral differences. Because of the general lack of population-based cohorts in which both sexual orientation identity and mortality have been ascertained, it is unclear whether the health disadvantages seen among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and homosexually experienced individuals 1–5 result in early mortality. 6–14 We capitalized on the recent linkage of National Death Index mortality records through December 31, 2011, to the 2001 to 2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cohort to investigate this possibility.