The 350 people who came to Philadelphia from 22 states had an opportunity to learn about the Obama Administration’s work on a range of LGBT health initiatives. The Conference morning session featured remarks by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Kathy Greenlee, Assistant Secretary for Aging; Howard Koh, Assistant Secretary for Health; Ken Choe, Deputy General Counsel; and keynote speaker John Barry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management – the highest-ranking openly LGBT person in the Administration. Conferees also participated in afternoon roundtable discussion on topics such as aging, cultural competency, the Affordable Care Act implementation, engaging with the Administration, transgender health, HIV prevention, and youth.
Especially noteworthy were two announcements HHS made at the conference: 1) HHS plans to release in the coming weeks its 2012 LGBT Health priority administrative actions; and 2) Regarding the ongoing work to develop Healthy People 2020 LGBT topic area objectives, Dr. Koh announced that the first objective will concentrate on LGBT data collection and will likewise be released in the coming weeks. The Coalition will provide further updates as they become available.
Also, click here to read The Advocate’s piece on the Conference.
The White House will continue holding conferences on LGBT topics throughout 2012, the next of which is on LGBT housing and homelessness. That conference will be held in Detroit on March 9. For more information or to register visit www.whitehouse.gov/lgbt.