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Email UsAddressing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Health Disparities through Translational Research
In this initiative, sponsored by the Harvard Catalyst Health Disparities Research Program, the community was invited to submit applications for pilot grants to support novel research partnerships with the potential to: (1) generate new evidence or methodologies that foster deeper understanding of LGBTQ health disparities, or (2) evaluate promising interventions to address these disparities.
The specific research priority areas represented topics covered during the program’s Translating Research to Action to Improve the Health of All Youth Symposium on May 10, 2016, and included:
- LGBTQ Youth Bullying
- Intersectionality
- Interventions
- Transgender & Non-Gender Binary/Gender Queer Identity
While proposals that addressed an area of particular interest were encouraged, this was an opportunity to conduct research in all areas of LGBTQ health disparities.
All Harvard University-appointed junior and senior faculty members were encouraged to apply for this funding opportunity.
Four pilot grants were awarded in amounts of up to $50,000 for each one-year project. Funding decisions were announced in May 2017.
Sponsoring Program
Health Disparities Research Program
Awardees
Principal Investigator: S. Bryn Austin, ScD, Boston Children’s Hospital
Co-Principal Investigator: Mihail Samnaliev, PhD, Boston Children’s Hospital
Over the past two decades and even just the past two years, enormous changes have occurred across U.S. states in the legal climate affecting sexual minorities (SM).
This project represents a pioneering effort to rigorously quantify the impact of both discriminatory and protective laws in each U.S. state on underserved populations and thus will be a critical step forward in understanding the potentially profound public health and economic impacts of these state laws on SM people of color.
Principal Investigator: Benjamin Cook, PhD, MPH, Cambridge Health Alliance
Emerging evidence about gender minority person show that gender minority individuals experience higher rates of poverty, unemployment, HIV, substance use, mental health disorders, suicidality, and domestic violence as well as discrimination in medical settings compared to the general population.
Using electronic health records this project will aim to develop a natural language processing/machine learning prediction method for negative health outcomes in the gender minority population.
Principal Investigator: Sari L. Reisner, ScD, Boston Children’s Hospital
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) students experience significant bullying that undermines their mental and physical health.
The multi-phase project will develop and pilot test an intervention to increase the capacity of school health professionals to prevent, identify, and address bullying of LGBTQ students, particularly of multi-ethnic and transgender students.
Principal Investigator: Li Zhou, MD, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Institute of Medicine, and Joint Commission all support gathering health data on LGBTQ populations to improve patient care, facilitate necessary research, and reduce LGBTQ health disparities.
The aim of this study was to describe and measure the extent to which sexual orientation and gender identity was documented in the electronic health records among BWH primary care patients and evaluate differences in healthcare utilization between and among LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ.