Disparities in incident osteoarthritis between sexual minority and heterosexual adults: Findings from a large cohort study
Authors' conclusion
Sexual orientation is associated with OA risk, with bisexual and lesbian women showing higher risk and gay men lower risk than heterosexuals.
Study context
- Population
- UK Biobank participants without osteoarthritis (OA) at baseline (2006–2010), followed through December 202140,728 developed OA
- Participants
- 346,320 participants
- Exposure
- Sexual minority vs heterosexual adults
- Outcome
- Incident OA
Methodological detailscoarsened exact matching on age, birth cohort and ethnicity, sex-stratified Cox models (age as time scale), mediation analyses
- Coarsened exact matching on age, birth cohort and ethnicity
- Sex-stratified Cox models (age as time scale)
- Mediation analyses
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
median follow-up 11.3 years
Estimate (95% CI)
Bisexual womenvs Heterosexual women
aHR 1.17(1.07–1.28)
Lesbian womenvs Heterosexual women
HR 1.36(1.10–1.68)
Gay menvs Heterosexual men
HR 0.72(0.60–0.85)
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Mediation in women (body mass index (BMI), Townsend index, smoking, depression)
- Mediation proportions
- 12.1% to 34.2%
Mediation in men (BMI and education) of lower OA risk in gay men
- Proportion of reduction explained
- 17.5-18.4%
Original publication
Disparities in incident osteoarthritis between sexual minority and heterosexual adults: Findings from a large cohort study. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. Published 10 October 2025. doi:10.
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