Published September 2020

The Victorian Population Health Survey is an important component of population health monitoring in Victoria. Regular analysis of the health and wellbeing of Victorians commenced in 1998 and the first survey of adult Victorians was conducted in 2001. The annual survey is an ongoing source of quality information on the health and wellbeing of adult Victorians and is used to report trends over time for important health measures

In 2017, the sample size of the Victorian Population Health Survey was 34,000 respondents. This enabled the collection of health data from a randomly selected representative sample of the LGBTIQ+ population.

Victoria is leading the nation in the collection of health measures on the physical, mental and social health of the LGBTIQ+ population. The findings from this survey have, for the first time in Victoria, enabled us to measure and report on the health status of LGBTIQ+ Victorians at the population level and to provide comparison, within the same survey, with Victoria’s non- LGBTIQ+ population.

The findings show that mental health and general physical health are poorer for LGBTIQ adults compared with non-LGBTIQ adults, and a higher proportion have two or more chronic illnesses. Three measures of social capital were significantly lower for LGBTIQ adults, as were food security and home ownership. (From the website). Family violence data is found in Chapter 6. A Q News article focused on this aspect of the findings in "LGBTIQ Aussies suffer higher rates of domestic violence, study finds." (September 2020). Record #6840