Disparities in the prevalence, frequency and trajectories of substance use and disordered eating across first-year university in sexual minority undergraduates

Abstract

Objective. To compare the prevalence and trajectories of risky health behaviors in sexual minority (SM; lesbian/gay/bisexual/questioning/asexual) versus heterosexual undergraduates across their first year of post-secondary. Participants. First-year undergraduates (N = 704, M_age=17.97 years, 24% SM) from a midsized Canadian university. Methods. Students completed monthly (September-April) online questionnaires assessing substance use (binge drinking, tobacco, cannabis, illicit drug use) and disordered eating (binge eating, fasting, purging). Results. At the outset of the academic year, SM students endorsed more frequent cannabis use, illicit drug use, fasting, and binge eating, but less frequent tobacco use, versus heterosexual students. Over the year, SM students’ binge drinking frequency declined less than that of heterosexual students, but their illicit drug use decreased while that of their heterosexual peers increased, and all students reported declining disordered eating frequency. Conclusions. Campus wellness initiatives for SM students should offer prevention and harm-reduction strategies prior to or shortly after their arrival on campus.

Keywords:

• College students
• disordered eating
• multilevel modeling
• sexual minority
• substance use

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge Si Ning Yeo and Carolyn Helps for their contributions to recruitment, data acquisition, and data management as study coordinators for the Many Minds project.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of Canada and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of University of Victoria Human Research Ethics Review Board.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by an Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (PI: Turner, 430-2017-00025), as well as a SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral award (#767-2020-2372) and a Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture award (#2020-B2Z-266973) to the first author, and a Scholar award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research to the fourth author (Turner, #18240).