Original articleEffects of at-school victimization and sexual orientation on lesbian, gay, or bisexual youths’ health risk behavior
Section snippets
Methods
Data used in the present study combined information from the 1995 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey (MYRBS) and the 1995 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey (VYRBS). This combined sample included 9188 9th- through 12th-grade students; 315 of these students either self-identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning (LGBQ) or were categorized as LGB on the basis of their reported sexual behaviors. This relatively large sample allowed for analysis by sexual orientation, gender, and
Results
To ascertain that it was reasonable to combine the Massachusetts and Vermont data, two strategies were employed. First, relevant sociodemographic characteristics and the health risk indices used in subsequent analyses were compared by state (Table 1). Second, key analyses were initially conducted separately for each state and compared for similar patterns of results. Within-state results were similar to results derived from the combined data.
Tabulation of relevant variables by state showed few
Discussion
All three hypotheses were supported. Consistent with previous studies 5, 6, victimization at school was disproportionately associated with LGBQ status. Second, LGBQ youths experiencing low levels of victimization at school were found to be similar to their heterosexual peers. Third, LGBQ youths in the high-victimization group evidenced substantially more health risk behavior, compared with heterosexual youths in the high-victimization group. Moreover, these associations are likely to be
Acknowledgements
We thank the Massachusetts Department of Education and Carol Goodenow for access to the 1995 MYRBS data. We also thank the Vermont Department of Health and Kelly Hale-Lamonda for access to the 1995 VYRBS data.
The completion of this research was facilitated by Grant RO1-58155 to the second author.
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