LGBTQ+ Elders highlighted as a particularly underserved and vulnerable population
[New York, NY] Yesterday, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies), with support from the AARP Foundation, released a groundbreaking report entitled Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults: Opportunities for the Health Care System. The report details how social isolation and loneliness dramatically impact the health and quality of life of older Americans. The National Academies, which bring uniquely important credibility to these topics, highlight severe health impacts of social isolation and loneliness, particularly among low-income, underserved, and vulnerable subpopulations. The report explicitly calls out LGBTQ+, minority, and immigrant older people as those who may face barriers to care, stigma, and discrimination and makes significant recommendations in terms of responsive research and funding.
SAGE applauds the National Academies on the release of this groundbreaking report and the report’s recognition that LGBTQ+ elders are a population of particularly acute need.
Among other key points, the report highlights that “individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ are more likely to say there are lonely.” The LGBTQ+-related findings of the National Academies are consistent with SAGE’s experience working with tens of thousands of LGBTQ+ older adults across the country as well as the small but growing body of research documenting that particular challenges that LGBTQ+ elders face as they age. While social isolation and loneliness are not always correlated, LGBTQ+ older people both report disproportionately high levels of loneliness and are often severely isolated as they age due in part to the relative absence of traditional family structures in their lives: they are 3-4 times less likely to have children, twice as likely to live alone, and twice as likely to be single. These realities – as well as the looming problem of LGBTQ+ elders’ inability to access welcoming, culturally competent services, care, and housing – present stark challenges to healthy aging in LGBTQ+ communities.
SAGE applauds and joins the National Academies’ call for more research on approaches and interventions that best meet the needs of LGBTQ+, minority, and immigrant older people. By surfacing the public health crisis of social isolation and loneliness among older Americans in general, and the particularly acute challenges that LGBTQ+ older adults confront, this report takes a critically important step in the right direction. SAGE, which for 42 years has developed programs and services to improve the quality of life of LGBTQ+ older adults, encourages — and will work aggressively for — full implementation of the National Academies’ recommendations to combat the highly negative impact of social isolation and loneliness among LGBTQ+ older adults and all older Americans.
