Have Mischievous Responders Misidentified Sexual Minority Youth Disparities in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health?

Abstract

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) has been instrumental in identifying sexual minority youth health disparities. Recent commentary suggested that some Wave 1 youth responders, especially males, intentionally mismarked same-sex attraction and, as a result, published reports of health disparities from these data may be suspect. We use two recently developed approaches to identify "jokesters" and mischievous responding and apply them to the Add Health data. First, we show that Wave 1 same-sex attracted youth, including those who later reported completely heterosexual identities in adulthood, were no more likely than different-sex attracted youth and consistently heterosexual participants to be "jokesters." Second, after accounting for mischievous responses, we replicated six previously established disparities: depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation and behaviors, alcohol use, cocaine use, parental satisfaction, and school connectedness. Accounting for mischievousness resulted in the elimination of one observed disparity between heterosexual and sexual minority youth: suicidal ideation for males who reported romantic attraction to both sexes. Results also showed that accounting for mischievous responding may underestimate disparities for sexual minority youth, particularly females. Overall, results presented here support previous studies that identified health disparities among sexual minority youth using these data.

Sexual Orientation and School Discipline: New Evidence From a Population-Based Sample

“…For example, in other research, I document the early onset and lasting correlates of the childhood bullying experiences endured by sexual minority youth. Third, the FFCWS collected information from multiple responders , allowing researchers to mitigate against the “mischievous responder” problem that may have compromised previous population-based studies of sexual minority teens (e.g., Savin-Williams & Joyner, 2014; but also see Fish & Russell, in press). Finally, the FFCWS has simply collected a wider range of education-related information than is available in other population-based sources.…”

Gay‐Straight Alliances, Inclusive Policy, and School Climate:LGBTQYouths’ Experiences of Social Support and Bullying

“…Similarly, a recent study that examined wellbeing among LGBT young adults found concurrent LGBT‐related support from families and friends during adolescence was associated with higher life satisfaction and self‐esteem (Snapp, Watson, Russell, Diaz, & Ryan, ). Extant research suggests, however, that parental support may generally be lower for LGB (D'Augelli, Grossman, & Starks, ; Fish & Russell, ; Mufioz‐Plaza, Quinn, & Rounds, ; Needham & Austin, ) and transgender (Factor & Rothblum, ; Fish & Russell, ) youth compared to heterosexual and cisgender youth.…”

Faking participant identity: Vested interests and purposeful interference

“…Such a strategy would not be feasible in larger studies where statistical corrections would be necessary. Fish and Russell (2017), Kramer et al (2014) and Wessling et al (2017) suggest better screening procedures and statistical corrections to address mischievous responders and misrepresentation by participants motivated by financial gain. Robinson-Cimpian (2014) describes sensitivity-analysis methods that may serve as implementable checks.…”

“…Direct interference and mischievous participation in the conduct of research by funders, politicians and participants who meet selection criteria have been reported in a number of fields (Fish and Russell, 2017; Miller et al, 2017; Prewitt, 2010; Sjöberg, 2015). Reflecting on our own experience of interference in a national research project, the authors were surprised to find that there is a paucity of literature reporting on situations where lay persons pose as legitimate participants with an explicit intent of threatening the integrity and progress of research.…”