2009 LGBT Health Awareness Week
By: Gary Hollander, Ph.D. - Posted on: 3/10/2009

LGBT adults must take a greater share in the responsibility for learning about our health and the systems that can support us in staying healthy. We must learn to effectively locate resources, navigate systems, and coach others to provide us with optimal services and care.

To start with we should know the six important health topics that we should all be able to talk about, especially with our medical providers. These consist of mental health (depression and anxiety), substance use (including alcohol and tobacco), sexual health (STDs and HIV), heart health (obesity, blood pressure, and cholesterol), fitness (diet and exercise), and violence (intimate partner violence and safety).

We must own our calendars and address books and prioritize the health visits and clinical services that can assist in our efforts to achieve and maintain good health.

Annual physicals, periodic screenings for STDs, regularly scheduled exercise, and tracking alcohol consumption will all go a long way in getting and staying healthy. Even as health care coverage may change for us, we must maintain current contact information for our providers. Friends, colleagues, and other health care providers we like can point us to other care givers who may meet our needs and be competent in the issues that we face as LGBT people.

Culturally competent care providers should know the issues that affect us most. They should be knowledgeable about the six issues named above. They should be aware of the intersectionality of gender, race, and sexual orientation and how these may affect our day-to-day stressors that challenge well-being. They should also know that as a group we face higher levels of depression and anxiety, especially when we lack adequate social supports, are not out, or face work-place or family hostilities.

Some lesbian and bisexual women also want their health care providers to avoid questions about the use of birth control. Others want these questions asked because their own views of reproductive justice include an expanding view of pregnancy and child-bearing.

For transgender people and other women and men, personal discomfort in medical settings sometimes leads to a perception that the provider is not culturally competent. This is often true. However, it can take awhile to gain perspective that helps us discern between provider competence and our own personal ambivalence or defensiveness about our health decisions and behaviors.

We deserve good health. We must partner with others to achieve good health status and maintain it. However, our own efforts to take charge of our health will make those partnerships more productive.

For more information see http://lgbthealth.net.