Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the safety and wellbeing of youth across the US. Ongoing research is needed to explore changes to patterns of youth violence across this disruptive period. Using cross-sectional survey data from youth in Minnesota, we compared changes in bullying risk by year from 2016, 2019, and 2022 student surveys – with 2022 being the first survey year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored bullying rates by year, grade, racial and ethnic identity, and sex.

Methods: We analyzed cross-sectional data from students surveyed in grades 8, 9, and 11 by the Minnesota Student Survey, a triennial survey of students enrolled in Minnesota public schools, for years 2016, 2019, and 2022 (N=353,079). Administered in the winter/spring semester, the survey asked students about their experiences with bullying in the past 30 days, which we grouped into categories as physical, verbal, or psychological bullying, cyberbullying, and the reasons for being bullied (race/ethnicity/nationality, gender, gender expression, LGBTQ status, religion, disability, size, or appearance). We used generalized estimating equations with a log binomial distribution to estimate the relative risk (RR) of bullying in 2019 vs 2016 and 2022 vs 2019, and the relative risk ratio (RRR) between these periods.

Results: Widespread increases in bullying risk were observed from 2016 to 2019 and again from 2019 to 2022. Cyberbullying increased by 31% from 2019-2022 compared to 2016-2019 (RRR 1.31, 95% CL 1.21-1.41). Models revealed steady increases in risk of verbal and physical bullying from 2016-2019 and 2019-2022. The increase in the relative risk of psychological bullying was lower from 2019-2022, compared to 2016-2019 (RRR 0.88, 95% CL 0.85-0.91), although female students were at 52% higher risk than male students (RR 1.52, 95% CL 1.50-1.54) in 2022, compared to 2019. By race and ethnicity group, American Indian or Alaska Native students had the highest risk increase in psychological (RR 1.78, 95% CL 1.72-1.84) and verbal bullying (RR 1.89, 95% CL 1.83-1.96) in 2022. Overall, the highest increase between survey years by type of bullying was from 2019 to 2022 for gender-based bullying (RR 1.55, 95% CL 1.48-1.62) and LGBTQ status (RR 1.46, 95% CL 1.38-1.54).

Conclusion: Bullying reported by Minnesota youth has been increasing over time and disproportionately impacts students by gender and racial and ethnic minority groups. Bullying for race, ethnicity, or nationality has increased consistently over the past two survey waves. Increasing risk of cyberbullying and bullying for gender, gender expression, or LGBTQ status has accelerated in comparison to pre-pandemic survey years.