RSS Feeds
Discordance between Sexual Behavior and Self-Reported Sexual Identity
- Qiang Xia, MD, MPH;
- Assunta Ritieni, MHS;
- Matthew Facer, PhD;
- Fred Molitor, PhD; and
- Joel Moskowitz, PhD
- From California Department of Health Services, Office of AIDS, Sacramento, California, and University of California, Berkeley, Center for Family and Community Health, Berkeley, California.
TO THE EDITOR:
Pathela and colleagues (1) reported that, of the self-identified heterosexual or straight men from the 5 boroughs of New York City, “9.4% reported having sexual intercourse with at least 1 man (and no women) in the year before the survey” (1). This statistic is atypical to those found in other general population studies (2, 3).
Using the data from the 2003 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), we found a rate similar to those reported elsewhere. The CHIS, the largest health survey in California and 1 of the largest health surveys in the United States, is a random digit–dialed telephone survey of adults, adolescents, and children throughout California (4). Similar to the Community Health Survey as reported by Pathela and colleagues, the CHIS adult questionnaire contained a question about sexual orientation that was asked in the middle of the interview. Participants between 18 and 70 years of age were asked about their sexual orientation …
