People in the LGBTIQ community often have difficulties accessing healthcare, including emergency care, in many cases leading people to avoid seeking necessary healthcare or in some cases being refused treatment by medical professionals.
In addition to facing challenges concerning their physical health, LGBTIQ people face mental health challenges too, often due to stigma. Young LGBTIQ people, trans, non-binary and gender diverse people are most likely to have suicidal thoughts, according to the 3rd LGBTIQ Survey conducted by Fundamental Rights Agency in 2023 and published in May 2024.
Combatting inequality in health is one of the priorities of the first-ever EU LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025.
This effort is made more difficult due to the lack of a systematic collection of reliable equality data by Member States, disaggregated by sex, racial and ethnic origin, religion, or belief, disability, age, or sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics. This is something the Fundamental Rights Agency and initiatives such as the one undertaken by the European Cancer Organisation on cancer inequalities for LGBTIQ+ people hope to improve upon by providing the necessary supporting data on cancer, and encouraging similar studies on health issues to make healthcare more equitable and accessible for everyone in the EU, without exception.
The agenda will follow shortly.
Details
- Publication date
- 30 September 2024
- Author
- Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety