Sexual minority identifiers and their perception of illicit drug use risks in the US: Results from a National Survey
Date
2024-07
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Elsevier Ltd.
Abstract
Purpose
This study examined the relationship between sexual identities and perception of risks associated with illicit drug use among a nationally representative sample of US adults.
Methods
We analyzed data from five waves of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH, 2015–2019), with 205,418 adult participants. Six survey questions assessing participants’ perceptions of the risks associated with illicit drug use (LSD, heroin, and cocaine) were subjected to principal component analysis. Sex-stratified ordered logistic regressions were used to explore potential disparities in perceptions regarding the risk associated with illicit drug use among sexual minority identifiers.
Results
Among male participants, approximately 11.3% and 1.8% of them perceived illicit drug use as moderate and low risks, respectively. About 6.0% of female participants perceived illicit drug use as moderate risk, and 1.1% of female participants perceived it as low risk. The sex-stratified regression models demonstrated that participants who identified as lesbian/gay or bisexual all had higher odds of reporting low perception of illicit drug use risks as compared to their heterosexual counterparts (all p < 0.01).
Conclusions
Illicit drug use prevention strategies should consider risk perception disparities by sexual minority populations.
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article
Comments
This accepted article is published as Yen-Han Lee, Yen-Chang Chang, Mack Shelley, and Humberto López Castillo, “Sexual Minority Identifiers and Perception of Illicit Drug Use Risks in the US: Results from a National Survey, The Journal of Psychiatric Research, July 2024,175;183-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2024.05.010.
Rights Statement
This article is under a CC BY-NC-ND creative commons license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.