Role of Alcohol Disparities in HIV Risk among Sexual Minority Youth

 描述(申请人提供)：酒精是美国年轻人中最常用和滥用的药物，性少数青少年(SMY)的酒精使用率比他们的异性恋同龄人高得不成比例。研究发现，酒精的使用和滥用与一系列负面的健康后果有关，包括心理困扰、神经认知缺陷和感染艾滋病毒。最后这一点对于男男性行为者(YMSM)来说尤其重要，YMSM是艾滋病毒发病率持续增长的仅有的风险群体之一。我们建议使用一系列流行病学方法来评估酒精使用对居住在美国的SMY的性、心理和身体健康的影响，以及SMY与他们的异性恋同龄人之间存在的差异。为了进行这些二次分析，我们将使用作为青年危险行为调查(YRBS)的一部分收集的数据，YRBS是一项两年一次的高中生调查，将在2015年的全国调查中首次评估性身份和行为。在我们之前工作的基础上，我们将专注于司法和时间上与酒精使用和差异的关联，识别影响酒精使用的结构性因素，并研究酒精使用和无公寓性行为之间的事件级别关联。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused drug among youths in the U.S., and prevalence of alcohol use is disproportionately higher among sexual minority youth (SMY) than among their heterosexual peers. Studies have found that alcohol use and abuse is associated with an array of negative health outcomes, including psychological distress, neurocognitive deficiencies, and acquisition of HIV. This last point is especially important for young men who have sex with men (YMSM), one of the only risk groups in which HIV incidence continues to grow. We propose to use an array of epidemiologic approaches to assess the impact that alcohol use has on the sexual, mental, and physical health of SMY living in the U.S., and the disparities that exist between SMY and their heterosexual peers. In order to conduct these secondary analyses, we will use data collected as part of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), a biennial survey of high school students that will assess sexual identity and behavior for the first time in the national survey in 2015. Buildin on our prior work that resulted in a special issue of the American Journal of Public Health, we will focus on jurisdictional and temporal associations with alcohol use and disparities, identify structural factors that influence alcohol use, and look at event-level associations between alcohol use and condomless sex.