Gay and Bisexual Male High Schoolers Have High Injected Drug Use
Key clinical point: Male U.S. students in grades 9-12 who identify themselves as sexual minorities have markedly higher rates of illicit drug use than their heterosexual peers.
Major finding: A total of 4.4% of U.S. male high school students identify themselves as gay or bisexual, and they are about sevenfold more likely than heterosexual students to have ever injected illegal drugs.
Data source: A national population-based survey of 15,624 male students in grades 9-12.
Disclosures: The presenter is an employee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which sponsored the annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
AT AIDS 2016
One clinician from New York rose from the audience to chastise the CDC for taking decades to incorporate questions about sexual minority youth into the YRBS.
“It’s important for the rest of the world to know how long it took the U.S. to collect this data. It’s not right. For those of you in the rest of the world who struggle to get information about your youth, don’t think that America is way ahead of you because it took us a long time,” she said.
Dr. Kann noted that such data have been collected for some time by some state and city public health agencies. As local officials began clamoring for a more comprehensive national picture, “it reached a tipping point” at the CDC.
Dr. Kann reported having no relevant financial conflicts.
