TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2018//
TI  - Bias from potentially mischievous responders on large-scale estimates of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning (lgbq)-heterosexual youth health disparities
JO  - American journal of public health
A1  - Cimpian, Joseph R.
A1  - Timmer, Jennifer D.
A1  - Birkett, Michelle A.
A1  - Marro, Rachel L.
A1  - Turner, Blair C.
A1  - Phillips, Gregory L.
SP  - S258
EP  - S265
VL  - 108
IS  - S4
N2  - OBJECTIVES: To determine how sensitive estimates of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning (LGBQ)-heterosexual youth health disparities are to the presence of potentially mischievous responders. <br><br>METHODS: We used US data from the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, pooled across jurisdictions that included a question about sexual identity for a total sample of 148 960 students. We used boosted regressions (a machine-learning technique) to identify unusual patterns of responses to 7 screener items presumably unrelated to LGBQ identification, which generated an index of suspected mischievousness. We estimated LGBQ-heterosexual youth disparities on 20 health outcomes; then we removed 1% of suspected mischievous responders at a time and re-estimated disparities to assess the robustness of original estimates. <br><br>RESULTS: Accounting for suspected mischievousness reduced estimates of the average LGBQ-heterosexual youth health disparity by up to 46% for boys and 23% for girls; however, screening did not affect all outcomes equally. Drug- and alcohol-related disparities were most affected, particularly among boys, but bullying and suicidal ideation were unaffected. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Including screener items in public health data sets and performing rigorous sensitivity analyses can support the validity of youth health estimates.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0090-0036
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304407
ID  - ref1
ER  -