Are Lesbians Really Women Who Have Sex with Women (WSW)? Methodological Concerns in Measuring Sexual Orientation in Health Research
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Varying measures of sexual orientation are used in women's health research. As they incorporate different dimensions, definitions, and categorical groupings, the comparability of results obtained across studies using different measures remains unknown. We examined the comparability of results using data from the U.S. 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (n = 6,356). Women were classified according to sexual orientation identity, sex of sex partners in the past year, and sex of sex partners over the lifetime. Associations with six health outcomes were compared across sexual orientation schemes. Associations differed in magnitude and statistical significance, even producing conflicting results. Our analyses resulted in a series of methodological recommendations for research on sexual minority women. Data on both behavioral and identity measures should be gathered in health research; identity groups should not be combined for analysis; and researchers should carefully consider which classification scheme(s) to use based on the theoretical basis for the study and the implications for informing interventions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.119 | 0.177 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.007 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".