More Teens Identify As Sexual Minority, And They May Be More Than Three Times As Likely To Attempt Suicide Than Those Who Are Heterosexual, Study Suggests

Healio (5/20) reports that “from 2009 to 2017, the proportion of teens who identified as a sexual minority nearly doubled to more than 14%, according to researchers, who found that these teens are still more than three times as likely to attempt suicide compared with heterosexual youths.” For the studypublished in Pediatrics, researchers “analyzed data from six states that collected information on sexual orientation identity and four states that collected information on the sex of sexual contacts through the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance Survey.” According to the data, “the proportion of participants who identified as heterosexual declined from 92.7% in 2009 to 85.7% in 2017, whereas the proportion of youths who identified as a sexual minority increased from 7.3% in 2009 to 14.3% in 2017.” Meanwhile, they “observed a decline in suicide attempts by sexual minorities over time…but not by heterosexual students, although sexual minorities remained more than three times more likely to attempt suicide.”