Sexual and gender minorities (SGMs) experience significant disparities in health and health care. These inequities result from complex interactions among social, political, environmental, and genomic factors, all of which must be understood if we are to address these disparities. The research needed to understand the health issues faced by SGM populations will often require analysis of large collections of individual phenotypic and behavioral information, community characteristics, and large-scale genomic data.

Public Health Relevance Section Policies in the U.S. increasingly rely upon genomic information as a biometric to inform visa application processes, by verifying biological relationship claims or statehood claims, and broad DNA collection from non-criminals may help with missing persons, disaster victim, and terrorism investigations. The societal implications of these genomic applications are broad, with benefits and risks to the individuals undergoing testing, the communities in which they live, and the nation at large.