Discussant for panel "LGB Health Outcomes in the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System"

This proposal is to serve as a discussant for a proposed APHA Panel titled “LGB Health Outcomes in the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System: Examining Differences by Gender, Race, and Across Development.” The panel is focused on a number of adolescent sexual minority health outcomes, using a large nationally representative sample, with a special emphasis on exploring racial, gender, and developmental differences. Data result from combining and analyzing the data from multiple administrations of YRBS surveys in order to create a larger pooled sample of sexual minority youth. Fourteen states and districts are represented across two years producing a weighted sample of N > 34,000. This dataset is highly unique in providing a very large number of sexual minority youth from a representative sample. This panel highlights some of the work that will comprise a forthcoming special issue of the American Journal of Public Health focused on sexual orientation disparities in multiple health outcomes among LGB youth. This research is being facilitated by the Fenway Institute Center for LGBT Population Health and I am serving as the chair of the youth working group who is authoring these series of papers. As discussant I will provide context for this very unique project and its findings. I will also bring attention to the forthcoming AJPH special issue.