Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth living in foster care or unstable housing are at greater risk for mental health problems, victimization, and getting into fights at school, compared with LGBTQ youth in stable housing and heterosexual youth in foster care, reported Laura Baums, PhD, of the University of Texas at Austin and her coauthors.
This was the finding of analyses of nested data of more than 493,000 students aged 10-18 years from the cross-sectional California Healthy Kids Survey for 2013-2015; 13% identified as LGBTQ. The analyses published in Pediatrics showed LGBTQ youth also were overrepresented in those living situations as compared with the general population.
Less than 1% of the overall sample was in foster care, but 30% of those youth identified as LGBTQ. About 4% of the overall sample lived in unstable housing, and 25% of those youth identified as LGBTQ. So the proportion of LGBTQ youth in foster care or unstable housing was two to three times greater than would be expected than the estimates of LGBTQ youth in nationally representative adolescent samples (that is 11%), Dr. Baums and her associates said.
LGBTQ youth in unstable housing reported lower grades, higher substance/alcohol abuse, higher rates of absenteeism, more fights in school, and more victimization, compared with heterosexual youth in unstable housing and LGBTQ youth in stable housing. Both LGBTQ youth in unstable housing and those in foster care reported higher rates of depression and suicidality in the past year, but the rates for depression were not different from LGBTQ youth in stable housing. Furthermore, African American LGBTQ youth in unstable housing showed poorer outcomes than non-Hispanic white LGBTQ youth in unstable housing, they said.
“” concluded Dr. Baums and her associates. “The findings of this study point to the need for care that is affirming and respectful of youth’s sexual orientation and gender identity.”
The authors reported no relevant financial disclosures. The study was funded by a Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant and supported by the Communities for Just Schools Fund and the Priscilla Pond Flawn Endowment at the university.
SOURCE: Baum L et al. Pediatrics. 2019 Feb 11. doi: 10.1542/peds.2017-4211.