Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The presence and participation in gay-straight alliance (GSAs) at schools can serve as interventions at the population level and are related to well being for youth in school; in some cases, aspects of GSAs can buffer the negative association between school victimization and well-being. Some studies have confirmed that GSAs impact the school environment for sexual minorities (e.g., gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender). Almost all research on the role of GSAs has relied on cross sectional data and student-reported presence of GSAs. In this project, we explore how one population health intervention implemented at middle- and high-schools in British Columbia for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender adolescents might be associated with health and well-being over time. The objective was to examine how a GSA might ameliorate the experiences of students in unsafe school environments through information exchange mechanisms. We found that disparities in victimization and emotional distress varied by how long a school had a GSA and the gender of students. For example, in schools with GSAs that began before 2003, female students were more than 2x higher the odds and male students were nearly 3x higher the odds of reporting lower rates of teasing compared to their respective counterparts in schools with no GSA programs. We suggest knowledge transfer strategies to stakeholders, such as administrators and researchers, who are invested in the adoption of interventions - such as GSAs - to protect sexual minority students at schools.