Up in Smoke: Exploring the Relationship between Bullying Victimization and E-Cigarette Use in Sexual Minority Youths

Abstract

Background E-cigarette use is increasing in popularity for high school students (Singh et al., 2016) and may be accompanied by negative health outcomes (Rankin et al., 2019). Students who identify as sexual minority (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer/questioning) may be at an increased risk of bullying victimization and substance use due to their sexual identity (Caputi, 2018). Purpose/Objectives: This study explored the relationship between bullying in school and cyberbullying (i.e. bullying through social media) victimization with past 30-day e-cigarette use for sexual minority youths, an at-risk group for victimization and its negative consequences. Methods: The Youth Risk Behavioral Survey was utilized to study a sample of sexual minority high school students (N = 2302; 69.4% female). Three models were utilized to examine whether bullying in school or cyberbullying victimization were related to e-cigarette use after controlling only for demographics in the demographics model, and then the use of other substances in the substance use model. Cigarette use was combined with e-cigarettes as the dependent variable in the third comparative model. Results: After controlling for age, race, sex, sexual identity, and other substance use, bullying victimization in school and online were significantly related to current e-cigarette use together but not separately. Cyberbullying victimization was significantly related to combined cigarette and e-cigarette use. Conclusions/Importance: These findings suggest that sexual minority students who report cyberbullying victimization may use cigarette products more than their noncyberbullied peers. Cyberbullying prevention and interventions should continue to be targeted in schools, especially for sexual minority youths.