Socioeconomic status as context for minority stress and health disparities among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals.

Despite the robust, graded association between socioeconomic status (SES) and health, SES has largely been ignored in the field of psychology and in lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) health research specifically. This inattention to SES is partly attributable to the “myth of gay affluence” (the assumption that LGB people are wealthier than the general population), which evidence is beginning to disprove. Given that there is no integrated framework for understanding the role of SES in LGB health, this review proposes theory-based expectations according to an integration of the minority stress model and the reserve capacity model, synthesizes the existing literature, and identifies future research directions. Three key questions at the intersection of SES and sexual orientation are examined: (a) Do LGB people differ from the general population in SES?, (b) What is unique and health-relevant about the intersection of being LGB and lower-SES?, and (c) How does SES provide context for understanding minority stress processes and health disparities among LGB people? The review has implications for the existing literature on LGB health, the design of future research studies, and targeted interventions.