TY - JOUR
T1 - Neighborhood-level LGBT hate crimes and current illicit drug use among sexual minority youth
AU - Duncan, Dustin T.
AU - Hatzenbuehler, Mark L.
AU - Johnson, Renee M.
N1 - Funding Information:
At the time of the study, D.T. Duncan was supported by the Alonzo Smythe Yerby Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard School of Public Health. M.L. Hatzenbuehler was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant # K01DA032558 ). R.M. Johnson was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant # K01DA031738 ). The 2008 Boston Youth Survey (BYS) was funded by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Grant # U49CE00740 ) to the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center at Harvard School of Public Health (David Hemenway, PhD, Principal Investigator). A grant to Dustin Duncan from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living Research Program (Grant # 67129 ) supported the development of the BYS geospatial dataset. The content is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC, the NIH, the RWJF or the City of Boston.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Objective: To investigate whether past-30 day illicit drug use among sexual minority youth was more common in neighborhoods with a greater prevalence of hate crimes targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT, or sexual minority) individuals. Methods: We used a population-based survey of public school youth in Boston, Massachusetts, consisting of 1292 9th-12th grade students from the 2008 Boston Youth Survey Geospatial Dataset (sexual minority n= 108). Data on LGBT hate crimes involving assaults or assaults and battery between 2005 and 2008 were obtained from the Boston Police Department and linked to youths' residential address. Youth reported past-30 day use of marijuana and other illicit drugs. Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests and corresponding p-values were computed to assess differences in substance use by neighborhood-level LGBT assault hate crime rate among sexual minority youth (n= 103). Results: The LGBT assault hate crime rate in the neighborhoods of sexual minority youth who reported current marijuana use was 23.7 per 100,000, compared to 12.9 per 100,000 for sexual minority youth who reported no marijuana use (p= 0.04). No associations between LGBT assault hate crimes and marijuana use among heterosexual youth (p>. 0.05) or between sexual minority marijuana use and overall neighborhood-level violent and property crimes (p>. 0.05) were detected, providing evidence for result specificity. Conclusions: We found a significantly greater prevalence of marijuana use among sexual minority youth in neighborhoods with a higher prevalence of LGBT assault hate crimes. These results suggest that neighborhood context (i.e., LGBT hate crimes) may contribute to sexual orientation disparities in marijuana use.
AB - Objective: To investigate whether past-30 day illicit drug use among sexual minority youth was more common in neighborhoods with a greater prevalence of hate crimes targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT, or sexual minority) individuals. Methods: We used a population-based survey of public school youth in Boston, Massachusetts, consisting of 1292 9th-12th grade students from the 2008 Boston Youth Survey Geospatial Dataset (sexual minority n= 108). Data on LGBT hate crimes involving assaults or assaults and battery between 2005 and 2008 were obtained from the Boston Police Department and linked to youths' residential address. Youth reported past-30 day use of marijuana and other illicit drugs. Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests and corresponding p-values were computed to assess differences in substance use by neighborhood-level LGBT assault hate crime rate among sexual minority youth (n= 103). Results: The LGBT assault hate crime rate in the neighborhoods of sexual minority youth who reported current marijuana use was 23.7 per 100,000, compared to 12.9 per 100,000 for sexual minority youth who reported no marijuana use (p= 0.04). No associations between LGBT assault hate crimes and marijuana use among heterosexual youth (p>. 0.05) or between sexual minority marijuana use and overall neighborhood-level violent and property crimes (p>. 0.05) were detected, providing evidence for result specificity. Conclusions: We found a significantly greater prevalence of marijuana use among sexual minority youth in neighborhoods with a higher prevalence of LGBT assault hate crimes. These results suggest that neighborhood context (i.e., LGBT hate crimes) may contribute to sexual orientation disparities in marijuana use.
KW - Illicit drug use
KW - LGBT assault hate crimes
KW - Marijuana use
KW - Sexual orientation
KW - Social determinants
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U2 - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2013.11.001
DO - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2013.11.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 24326203
AN - SCOPUS:84891828504
SN - 0376-8716
VL - 135
SP - 65
EP - 70
JO - Drug and Alcohol Dependence
JF - Drug and Alcohol Dependence
IS - 1
ER -