Does LGB Identification Really Lead to Riskier Health Behaviors? New Evidence from Sibling Pairs and Panel Data

Laura M. Argys, University of Colorado at Denver

While a number of studies have examined the association between substance use and sexual orientation, few have addressed the role of difficult-to-measure factors that could be associated with both disclosure of sexual identity and with risky health behaviors. Using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, we examine the link between substance use and sexual identity in models that include alternative definitions of sexual identity, use a wide variety of family-level and individual-level control variables and examine sibling pairs to control for family-specific fixed effects. Moreover, our study is the first to use longitudinal data to explore the relationship between changes in individual-level reports of sexual identity and risky health behaviors. Our results suggest that while there is evidence that LGBs are slightly more likely to use some substances, the effects are much smaller than previous research would suggest once individual and family characteristics are controlled.