August 11, 2016
The first nationwide study to ask high school students about their sexuality found that gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers were at far greater risk for depression, bullying and many types of violence than their straight peers.
“I found the numbers heartbreaking,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which includes a division that administered the survey.
The survey documents what smaller studies have suggested for years,
but it is significant because it is the first time the federal
government’s biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the gold standard of
adolescent health data collection, looked at sexual identity. The survey
found that about 8 percent of the high school population described
themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, which would be about 1.3 million
students.
Click here for the ENTIRE article.
Also see:
These newly available data are published in today’s
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The national
2015 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is the principal source of data for tracking health risk behaviors among the nation’s high school students.
