Improving Dermatologic Care for Sexual and Gender Minority Patients Through Routine Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data Collection

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations, including people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT), face unique health disparities, such as dermatology-specific health disparities.¹ Mitigating those disparities is a national public health priority, which is reflected in the federal government’s public health agenda, Healthy People 2020.² These efforts can succeed only if physicians ascertain whether patients are of an SGM, which might not be outwardly apparent, and then act on that knowledge to provide medically appropriate and culturally sensitive care.