Intersecting Identities and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury among Youth

ABSTRACT

Recent research suggests that intersecting marginalized identities may be important in explaining suicide-related mental health disparities. However, inconsistent findings have emerged regarding nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). Guided by an intersectionality framework, we examined relations between identity and NSSI using a representative sample of 8th through 12th graders from Utah (N = 49,425). The independent influence of sexual orientation, gender, race/ethnicity, and religious preference on NSSI were examined using bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. Intersectionality analyses, using two-way interaction terms, were then conducted to examine the impact of intersecting identities on NSSI. Results indicated that gay/lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and “other” gender youth, and non-Latter-day Saint (LDS) participants were at particularly high risk of NSSI. In intersectionality analyses, sexual minorities were more likely than heterosexual participants to endorse NSSI among cisgender, but not gender minority youth; bisexual participants of color were less likely to engage in NSSI than European American bisexual youth, but no effect for race/ethnicity was found for gay/lesbian youth; and among heterosexual participants, non-LDS youth were more likely than LDS youth to engage in NSSI, but no effect for religion was found among gay/lesbian or bisexual participants. Implications of these results and the differences in results by method are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Nonsuicidal self-injury
• intersectionality
• sexual minority
• LGBTQ
• transgender

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to report for the present study.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available at request from the Utah Department of Human Services, Substance Use, and Mental Health.

Notes

1. In August of 2018, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asked to no longer be referred to as the “LDS Church” or the “Mormon Church.” To respect their request, we will use the full name of the Church (or just “the Church”) when referring to the institution but will use “LDS” or “Mormon” to refer to its members (e.g., “LDS Utahns”). For details, see https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/name-of-the-church?cid=HP_TH-16-8-2018_dPAD_fMNWS_xLIDyL1-A_

2. We also conducted a supplemental analysis with the NSSI variable in its original metric as the outcome in ordinal logistic regression models. We found the same pattern of significance for results, and the 95% confidence intervals for coefficients in these models overlapped with those for coefficients in the logistic regression models we report here. It is not clear whether the original models met the proportional odds assumption, so given the similarity in findings, we chose to report the logistic regression results here, and the ordinal results in supplementary information (Figure S1).