Findings from Two Online Experiments to Advance the Science on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Measurement: An Application to Estimating Cigarette Relighting Behaviors.

To better understand the impact of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) measurement choices on estimates of hazardous health behaviors, we examined the impact of SOGI measurement choices on estimates of relighting, as an example hazardous health behavior. We embedded a 2×2×2 factorial experiment within a convenience sample of US adults ages 18-45 who smoke daily or some days (N=271) and a nationally representative sample of US adults ages 21+ who smoke regularly (20+ days per month and in past week; N=2020) to test three aspects of SOGI measurement: order of gender identity questions, wording of the heterosexual response option when assessing sexual orientation, and order of sexual orientation identity response options. We compared relighting prevalence among individuals classified as being a sexual or gender minority (SGM) across survey conditions. There were large statistically significant differences in relighting behavior by condition, but only in the convenience sample: prevalence was higher if gender identity was assessed by asking gender before sex (95.0% vs 66.7%, p=.029) and if ordering the sexual orientation response options by population prevalence (95.0% vs 66.7%, p=.029). SOGI measurement choices may impact estimates of cigarette relighting, but larger studies are needed to further evaluate this phenomenon.