ArticleJournal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines2024
Sexual orientation and mental health in a US cohort of children: a longitudinal mediation study.
Article in Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- From school climate to brain development: What the ABCD study reveals about the educational context of adolescence.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Review
- Sexual and gender minority identity, peer victimization, and suicidality in adolescents: A mediation study using the ABCD Study.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2025Article
- A Calibrated Sensitivity Analysis for Weighted Causal Decompositions.Statistics in medicine · 2025Article
- Responsible research in health disparities using the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentDevelopmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSexual minorities, including children, are at increased risk for adverse mental health outcomes compared to their heterosexual peers, but longitudinal studies are needed to determine the factors that explain the associations between sexual minority identification and adverse mental health outcomes during this developmental period. We examined longitudinal associations between sexual orientation and mental health over 2 years in a US cohort of children (aged 9-10 at baseline) and two explanatory factors (increased social problems such as getting teased and decreased perceived school safety). We hypothesized that beginning to identify as gay/bisexual and consistently identifying as gay/bisexual would be associated with increases in internalizing (e.g. depression, anxiety) and externalizing (e.g. aggression) problems compared to consistently identifying as heterosexual, and these associations would be partially explained by increased social problems and decreased perceived school safety.
methodsWe used data from Waves 1-3 of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study. The analytic sample included 5,574 children (46.0% female; 55.1% non-Hispanic White).
resultsBeginning to identify as gay/bisexual was associated with increased internalizing/externalizing problems, and consistently identifying as gay/bisexual was associated with increased internalizing problems, compared to consistently identifying as heterosexual. For those who consistently identified as gay/bisexual, increased disparities in internalizing problems were partially explained by increased social problems and decreased perceived school safety, and increased disparities in externalizing problems were partially explained by increased social problems.
conclusionsThese findings suggest the health disparities affecting sexual minority children include both internalizing and externalizing problems, and social problems and feeling unsafe at school may be contributing factors.
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