This study examined, in a nationally representative sample, if the global mental health disparities associated with self-identified and behavioural sexual orientation (SO) are mediated by stress and social support. Mediation analyses were performed separately for men and women in a population sample ( n = 80,985) from two waves of Statistics Canada’s Canadian Community Health Survey (2015/2016 and 2019/2020). Two-step hierarchical linear regressions were used to assess the effect of adding the mediators to the model on the coefficient of the SO variables. Then, a formal test of the mediation of the relation between SO and global mental health via perceived daily stress, perceived social support, and their interaction was conducted based on Preacher and Hayes’s methodology. Stress, social support, and their interaction partially mediated the relationship between SO and global mental health. However, only two of the five minority SO categories were statistically mediated. Specifically, for self-identified bisexual respondents and those who did not have sex in the last 12 months, higher levels of stress, and lower levels of social support partially explained their lower global mental health. The interaction between mediators proved relevant only for respondents who did not have sex in the last 12 months, revealing a lesser mediating role for this variable in the relationship between SO and global mental health. Thus, the fact that sexual minority populations have lower levels of global mental health was partially explained by perceived daily stress and social support, particularly for those who identify as bisexual.
Leclerc et al. (Mon,) studied this question.