Risk and Protective Factors for Suicidal Thoughts Among Sexual Minority Youth: Evidence from the Add Health Study

Abstract

Sexual minority youth are at greater risk for suicidal thoughts compared to heterosexual youth: Directions for prevention and intervention are urgently needed. Few studies have examined a broad range of risk and protective factors that may explain this disparate risk. This study utilized the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine which protective and risk factors for suicidal thoughts behaved distinctly in sexual minority adolescents compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Although many risk factors did not differ for heterosexual and sexual minority adolescents, we found several that were statistically significant for predicting later suicidal thoughts for sexual minorities: personal and friends’ school connections, friendship activities, and maternal caring.

KEYWORDS:

• suicide ideation
• youth
• sexual minority

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge support for this research from a Distinguished Investigator Grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to the first author, and from the University of Arizona Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences Fitch Nesbitt Endowment. This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, PhD, Peter S. Bearman, PhD, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, PhD, with funding from the NICHD and cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth/contract.html).