{"doi":"10.1101/2025.04.01.25324943","title":"Sexually Explicit and Violent Media Use among High School Students in Vietnam: Gender-Differentiated Links with Sexual Misconduct Victimization, Perpetration, and Health","abstract":"ABSTRACT Background Research is lacking in lower-income countries on levels and associations of sexually explicit and sexually violent media use (SEM/SVM) with well-being outcomes in high-school students. Objective We tested theories of gendered aggression and moral incongruence to explain the associations of SEM and SVM use versus non-use with sexual misconduct perpetration/victimization and well-being outcomes among males and females attending three high schools in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Method 712 eleventh and twelfth graders were surveyed about their general health, mental health, alcohol use, beliefs about pro-violence peer norms, academic disengagement, sexual misconduct perpetration and victimization, and SEM/SVM use. Unadjusted and adjusted regression models were estimated. Results Most (79%) reported any SEM/SVM use (47% SEM only; 32% any SVM). SVM use was higher among boys (39%) than girls (27%). Among boys, users reported poorer adjusted self-rated health (SEM coef=0.43; SVM coef=0.58), higher alcohol use (SEM aOR=2.45; SVM aOR=2.35), and higher sexual misconduct perpetration (SVM aOR=5.31) than non-users. Among girls, SVM users reported higher adjusted sexual misconduct perpetration (aOR=2.81) and sexual violence victimization (aOR=5.99), and SEM users reported higher sexual misconduct victimization (aOR=2.24) than non-users. Conclusion Sexualized media use is common among high-school students in Ho Chi Minh City, especially among boys. Gendered aggression theory helps explain the effects of use on violence victimization and perpetration. Moral incongruence theory helps explain poorer health among male users. “No-phone” programs alongside staff, parent, and student outreach about the harms of sexualized media use should be tested to improve high-school students’ well-being in Vietnam.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2025,"id":563671,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9472,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1302797,"name":"Meghan Macaulay","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1428792,"name":"Kim Tran","orcid":"0000-0003-1586-6643","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":683253,"name":"Kathryn M. Yount","orcid":"0000-0003-1917-1574","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":51,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:17.117043Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}