Issue
Administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) gathers information on pregnancy and births, marriage and cohabitation, infertility, use of contraception, family life, and general and reproductive health. The findings help the government and other entities plan health services and health education programs, and to conduct studies of families, fertility, and health. In 2002, the NSFG became one of the first federal surveys to ask respondents about their sexual orientation. The proposed revision would include a question on the NSFG about experiences of discrimination based on LGBT status.
Impact
The proposed discrimination question would make the NSFG the only federal government survey to provide information about LGBT people’s experiences of unfair treatment. Results would provide information on the proportion of LGB people who have experienced mistreatment in their lifetime. It would also provide data about the relationship between discrimination and other outcomes, such as housing security and employment.
Summary
Scholars support the proposed inclusion of a question about unfair treatment based on LGBT status by providing information about the LGBT population in the U.S. and research that has resulted from NSFG’s inclusion of sexual orientation questions. They also recommend a more effective module to measure experiences of unfair treatment and encourage the CDC to consider including a gender identity measure in future versions of the NSFG to allow for the identification of transgender and non-binary respondents.