Abstract
The goal of this study was to evaluate a novel measure of environmental risk factors for bullying among sexual minority youths. Data on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) assault hate crimes were obtained from police records, geocoded, and then linked to individual-level data on bullying and sexual orientation from the 2008 Boston Youth Survey Geospatial Dataset (N = 1,292; 108 sexual minorities). Results indicated that sexual minority youths who reported relational and electronic bullying were more likely to reside in neighborhoods with higher LGBT assault hate crime rates. There was no association between LGBT assault hate crimes and bullying among heterosexual youths, providing evidence for specificity to sexual minority youth. Moreover, no relationships were observed between sexual minority bullying and neighborhood-level violent and property crimes, indicating that the results were specific to LGBT assault hate crimes.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 663-675 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Violence and victims |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2015 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Bullying
- Community-level determinants of youth violence
- Hate crimes
- Sexual orientation
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pathology and Forensic Medicine
- Health(social science)
- Law