Prevalence of Bullying Among Youth Classified as LGBTQ Who Died by Suicide as Reported in the National Violent Death Reporting System, 2003-2017 [jamanetwork.com]

By Kristy A. Clark, Susan D. Cochran, and Anthony J. Maiolatesi, JAMA Pediatrics, May 26, 2020

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth are more likely to be bullied and to report suicidal thoughts and behaviors than non–LGBTQ youth.¹ Whether bullying is a more common antecedent among LGBTQ youth who die by suicide, however, is unknown. We investigated this question using postmortem records from the 2003-2017 National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS).

Details on the NVDRS can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.² The NVDRS is compiled by trained abstractors in contributing state departments of health who collate information from death certificates, coroner or medical examiner records, and law enforcement reports. Each NVDRS record includes 2 narratives summarizing the coroner or medical examiner records and law enforcement reports describing suicide antecedents as reported by the decedent’s family or friends; the decedent’s diary, social media, and text or email messages; and any suicide note. We classified these narratives for LGBTQ status and bullying among 9884 decedents aged 10 to 19 whose narratives included any coroner or medical examiner records or law enforcement report information from January 1, 2003, through December 31, 2017. Given the use of data solely from decedents, this cohort study of postmortem records from the NVDRS was designated as not human subjects research by the Yale Human Subjects Committee.

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