Background: Depression continues to be a public health crisis for young adults. For high school students, past research has identified trauma as a significant predictor of depression. Congruent with the theory of cumulative stress, the present study hypothesized that the effect of sexual assault on depression would be stronger among lesbian, gay,…

Student victimization by school staff members has important potential consequences for students' academic achievement and physical and psychological outcomes. Several studies have shown that such victimization exists in multiple contexts and there is considerable variation in prevalence among contexts. This study examined the prevalence of student…

Given high rates of relationship violence among adolescents, there is a need to understand variables that influence adolescents' helping behaviors to reduce risk for dating and sexual violence (reactive) and promote prevention before violence happens or risk factors are evident (proactive). The current paper examined individual and school…

Previous methodological approaches have not been flexible enough to model the heterogeneity of depressive symptoms or to identify variations between prototypical trajectories conditional on risk and protective factors. The current study examined latent class trajectories of depressive symptoms using data from 3,819 respondents of the Adolescent…

This study examined the association between various types of peer-directed violence and suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adolescents. A nationally representative sample of 15,425 high school students completed the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. All types of peer victimization (bullying, physical violence, and dating violence) were found to…

The purpose of the study is to assess the relationship between timing of adolescent development and risk factors for suicide. Nationally representative data from the Add Health survey were used. The relationship of sociodemographic characteristics, known risk factors, and physical developmental timing and cognitive developmental style to suicide…

Using the 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance data (n = 13,917) of high school students, we examined the association between four domains of risk factors (alcohol/drug use, aggression, HIV risk-related behaviors, and health problems) and indicators of suicidality (considering a suicide attempt, making a plan to attempt suicide, and actually…