Doctoral Dissertation Research: Stigma, Social Structure, and Adolescent Mental Health

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

The dissertation research examines the relationship between sexual orientation and adolescent mental health by assessing the social determinants of mental health problems among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth. The project examines the premise that the experience of being a LGB adolescent leads to stigmatizing social support and social network experiences which in turn produce a high risk of mental health problems. The dissertation has two research goals. The first goal is to use a nationally-representative dataset to generalize about the social support experiences of LGB and evaluate how these experiences affect their mental health. For the second goal, the project uses social network data to describe and compare the social network experiences of LGB and heterosexual adolescents as they contribute to mental health outcomes. The dissertation uses two samples from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The first sample is a nationally-representative sample of 18,924 U.S. adolescents from grades 7 to 12 who were initially interviewed in 1995 with two follow-up interviews in 1996 and 2001-2002. The second sample is a social network sample of 7,106 students. This sample contains data from all enrolled students in 16 schools who participated in the Wave I interview. A nationally-representative sample gives a more accurate description of the social support experiences of LGB adolescents. A social network sample of peer networks in school provides greater understanding on how structural arrangements in social groups have consequences for mental health. The broader impacts of this research lie in the utility of its findings to better inform clinical and policy strategies at the individual and community levels in reducing mental health problems among LGB adolescents.