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Prevalence of Dating Violence Among Sexual Minority Youth: Variation Across Gender, Sexual Minority Identity and Gender of Sexual Partners

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Abstract

Dating violence during adolescence negatively influences concurrent psychosocial functioning, and has been linked with an increased likelihood of later intimate partner violence. Identifying who is most vulnerable for this negative outcome can inform the development of intervention practices addressing this problem. The two goals of this study were to assess variations in the prevalence of dating violence across different measures of sexual minority status (e.g., sexual minority identity or same-sex sexual behavior), and to assess whether this association was mediated by bullying, the number of sexual partners, binge drinking or aggressive behaviors. These goals were assessed by employing the Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey (N = 12,984), a regionally representative sample of youth ages 14–18. In this sample, a total of 540 girls and 323 boys reported a non-heterosexual identity, and 429 girls and 230 boys reported having had one or more same-sex sexual partners. The results generally supported a higher prevalence of dating violence among sexual minority youth. This vulnerability varied considerably across gender, sexual minority identity and the gender of sexual partners, but generally persisted when accounting for the mediating variables. The findings support investigating dating violence as a mechanism in the disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual youth, and the importance of addressing sexual minority youth specifically in interventions targeting dating violence.

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Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the support postdoctoral fellowships to the author from the Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Société et la Culture and the Social Sciences and from Humanities Research Council of Canada. The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is the source of Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey data used for this study. The project was supported by the Summer Institute in LGBT Population Health, under Award Number R25HD064426 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NICHD or the National Institutes of Health.

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  1. Département de Psychoéducation, Université de Sherbrooke, Pavillon A7 2500 Boul. De L’Université, Sherbrooke, QC, J1K 2R1, Canada

    Alexa Martin-Storey

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Martin-Storey, A. Prevalence of Dating Violence Among Sexual Minority Youth: Variation Across Gender, Sexual Minority Identity and Gender of Sexual Partners. J Youth Adolescence 44, 211–224 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-013-0089-0

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