Behavioral Risk Disparities in a Random Sample of Self-Identifying Gay and Non-Gay Male University Students

Abstract

This Internet-based study was designed to compare health risk behaviors of gay and non-gay university students from stratified random cross-sectional samples of undergraduate students. Mean age of the 4,167 male participants was 20.5 (±2.7) years. Of these, 206 (4.9%) self-identified as gay and 3,961 (95.1%) self-identified as heterosexual. After adjusting for selected characteristics and clustering within university, gay men had higher odds of reporting: multiple sexual partners; cigarette smoking; methamphetamine use; gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) use; other illicit drug use within the past 30 days and during lifetime; and intimate partner violence (IPV). Understanding the health risk behaviors of gay and heterosexual men is crucial to identifying associated factors and intervening upon them using appropriate and tailored strategies to reduce behavioral risk disparities and improve health outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• gay men
• sex
• drug use
• student
• alcohol
• intimate partner violence
• methamphetamine
• tobacco
• condom
• GHB

Human subject review and study oversight were provided by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Wake Forest University Health Sciences. The review boards of other universities participating in this study either approved this study or officially deferred to the Wake Forest University School of Medicine IRB.

This study was supported by grants from National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (R01-AA14007 awarded to M.W. and U01-AA14741 awarded to S.D.R.) and from the Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (Grant Number 22–3849199; Contract No. 1865 awarded to M.W.)