Health Disparities
Are we missing folxs? Sexual orientation and gender identity measurement in a sample of California high school students Riley Saham* Riley Saham Emma Jackson Ricardo Vera Monroy Jay G. Silverman Sabrina C. Boyce
Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) youth are at high risk for depression and suicide. However, current measures of sexual and gender identity (SOGI) may be misclassifying youth identifying as SGM, leading to underestimates of this population’s size and risk for depression and suicide. There is currently no gold standard for SOGI measures, but emergent research suggests more inclusive (i.e., expanded) SOGI questions could lead to better identification of SGM individuals. This study compares two SOGI measures, standard and expanded, used in the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), a school climate and health survey of California public schools. A census sample of 9th and 11th graders in five school districts in Southern and Central California administered the CHKS core survey and an optional module in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years, containing an experimental expanded SOGI measure along with the standard SOGI measure offered in the core module. This research assessed the two SOGI measures by comparing the individuals identifying as either Gender Minority (GM) or Sexual Minority (SM) solely in the expanded SOGI measure to those who identified as SGM in both measures (GM N = 1,620; SM N = 4,274). Using hierarchical multivariable Poisson regression models clustering on school, we assessed risk for suicide and depression among those who identify as SGM only in the expanded measure, relative to those who identify as SGM in both measures. Preliminary results indicate 558 youth identified as GM and 114 as SM only in the expanded SOGI measure (34.44% of the GM and 7.86% of the SM samples). We hypothesize that those youth are at the same or greater risk for depression and suicide as youth identifying as SGM in both measures (results to be finalized before the conference). These results indicate that more comprehensive gender and sexuality SOGI questions better identify SGM youth, allowing for more accurate identification of the needs of this population.