Victimization, use of violence, and drug use at school among male adolescents who engage in same-sex sexual behavior☆,☆☆,★
Section snippets
Sample Selection
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed the Youth Risk Behavior Survey to assess the prevalence of health risk behaviors among youth in the United States. Based on the national YRBS instrument, the 1995 Vermont YRBS was administered to 8th- through 12th-grade students attending 79 randomly selected public and private schools in the state.28 All students were given a verbal introduction to the survey by the survey administrator that described (1) the purpose of the survey, (2)
Results
Of the male students in Vermont who had ever had sexual intercourse, 8.7% reported having had sexual intercourse with another male (Table I). In comparison, 4.9% of sexually active female adolescents reported having sex with other females. Two percent of male adolescents reported only one male sexual partner; 35% of male adolescents reporting only one male sexual partner also reported never having sex with a female. Of male students with one male sexual partner, 44% reported also having had sex
Discussion
Information from several sources suggests that high school students who engage in same-sex sexual behavior may be at an increased risk of victimization, violence, and substance use.11, 12, 13, 14 However, with the exception of two studies that measured same-sex sexual behavior as a dichotomous variable (yes vs no), this problem has not been studied with large population-based samples of adolescents.11, 22
Based on the differences in the strength of the observed associations between the number of
Acknowledgements
We thank the Vermont Agency of Human Services for providing the data used in this study. We also thank Vickie Renegar for her editorial assistance.
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2022, Journal of Men's HealthResearch on sexual and gender minority health: Historical developments and future directions
2021, Advances in Medical Sociology
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From the Section of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Brenner Children’s Hospital, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
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Reprint requests: Robert H. DuRant, PhD, Section of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Brenner Children’s Hospital, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Medical Center Blvd., Winston-Salem, NC 27157.
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