Gay-straight alliances (GSAs) are school-based organizations for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth and their allies that often attempt to improve school climate for sexual and gender minority youth. This meta-analysis evaluates the association between school GSA presence and youth's self-reports of school-based victimization by quantitatively synthesizing 15 primary studies with 62,923 participants. Findings indicate GSA presence is associated with significantly lower levels of youth's self-reports of homophobic victimization, fear for safety, and hearing homophobic remarks, and these results are robust, controlling for a variety of study-level factors. The findings of this meta-analysis provide evidence to support GSAs as a means of protecting LGTBQ+ youth from school-based victimization.

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This review of reviews presents an empirically based set of mean effect size distributions for judging the relative impact of the effects of universal mental health promotion and prevention programs for school-age youth (ages 5 through 18) across a range of program targets and types of outcomes. Mean effect size distributions were established by examining the findings from 74 meta-analyses of universal prevention and promotion programs that included more than 1100 controlled outcome studies involving over 490,000 school-age youth. The distributions of mean effect sizes from these meta-analyses indicated considerable variability across program targets and outcomes that differed substantially from Cohen's (1988, Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.)) widely used set of conventions for assessing if effects are small, medium, or large. These updated mean effect size distributions will provide researchers, practitioners, and funders with more appropriate evidence-based standards for judging the relative effects of universal prevention programs for youth. Limitations in current data and directions for future work are also discussed.

Later school start times for supporting the education, health, and well-being of high school students.