Suicidal ideation among youth: Examining the intersections of multiple social positions and bias-based bullying

Suicidal ideation is prevalent among minoritized youth. This study identified disparities in suicidal ideation across youth with intersecting social positions-including race and ethnicity, sex assigned at birth, gender, and sexual orientation-and examined the role of bias-based bullying (based on race and ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation) related to these disparities.

Data for this study were drawn from the 2017-2019 California Healthy Kids Survey, with a sample of 458,963 students in grades 9 through 12. Around half of the participants identified as Latina/x/o (50.4 %), 49 % were assigned female at birth, 93.7 % identified as cisgender, and 81.9 % identified as straight. Exhaustive Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection was used to analyze how rates of suicidal ideation vary among youth with intersecting social positions and multiple forms of bias-based bullying experiences.

Youth with intersecting minoritized social positions, particularly those with both minoritized sexual and gender identities, reported the highest rates of suicidal ideation in the past year (43.9 % to 63.3 %), three to four times higher than the overall sample rate (16.5 %). Furthermore, all youth in the highest prevalence groups of suicidal ideation experienced at least one form of bias-based bullying. Suicidal ideation rates were 26.3 % to 59.0 % higher among youth who experienced bias-based bullying compared to those with the same social positions who did not experience bullying.

Suicidal ideation is especially prevalent among youth with intersecting minoritized social positions who have also experienced multiple forms of bias-based bullying.