LGBTQ+ Youth-Generated Intervention Concepts for Reducing Teen Dating Violence Inequities

Abstract

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, nonbinary, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) youth are at substantially greater risk than cisgender heterosexual youth for experiencing teen dating violence (TDV) victimization, including emotional, physical, and sexual abuse within dating/romantic relationships. Despite these inequities, there are no evidence-based interventions designed specifically to address TDV among LGBTQ+ youth. To redress this dearth of interventions, we utilized a youth-centric approach, wherein 46 LGBTQ+ youth co-developed intervention concepts for reducing TDV. Participants engaged in a process of generating, prioritizing, and refining intervention concepts for reducing TDV inequities using human-centered design activities. LGBTQ+ youth generated eight intervention concepts, including the name, description, audience, problem focus, goals, and process for each. Their interventions focused on strategies for enhancing education, support systems, and advocacy. The intervention concepts had a wide variety of intended audiences, including LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ youth, teachers, school administrators, and policymakers. Overall, LGBTQ+ youth sought to improve education and skills pertaining to violence, sexual health, and healthy relationships; enhance support systems and resources for students’ basic, mental health, and safety needs; and build advocacy channels related to “outing” and LGBTQ+ students’ needs. These LGBTQ+ youth-generated programmatic and policy intervention concepts, in addition to our human-centered design approach, can be directly leveraged by health promotion practitioners and prevention experts into future intervention development, implementation, and evaluation efforts to improve LGBTQ+ youth health, well-being, resilience, and advocacy.