Collecting Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data in Suicide and Other Violent Deaths: A Step Towards Identifying and Addressing LGBT Mortality Disparities

Sexual orientation and gender identity (SO/GI) are not systematically recorded at time of death, limiting identification of mortality disparities in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. LGBT populations are thought to have elevated risk of suicide based on high rates of reported lifetime suicide attempts. Lack of data on suicide deaths, however, hinders understanding of the prevalence and patterns of suicide among LGBT populations and development of targeted interventions and prevention programs. This report describes recent efforts to address this knowledge gap by systematically collecting SO/GI information in the investigation of suicide and other violent deaths.