Below is a small sample of the work that the Coalition's staff, members, and partners are currently engaged in. If you have questions or ideas about any of these activities or wish to learn more about these or other areas in which we work, please contact us at coalition@lgbthealth.net.
The Coalition was founded ten years ago by advocates working to achieve LGBT inclusion in Healthy People 2010, the federal government's blueprint for building a healthier nation between 2000 and 2010. Healthy People 2010 included the first specific objectives around LGB health priorities, and LGBT health advocates including the Coalition and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA) authored the LGBT Companion Document to Healthy People 2010 to provide further resources for those seeking to use Healthy People in their work.
Now, after a decade of hard work (see our comments on the draft objectives of Healthy People 2020, submitted in December 2009), we are thrilled to announce that Healthy People 2020 includes numerous objectives important for the LGBT community AND an entire topic area devoted to LGBT health! Check out the new LGBT Health topic area and other exciting Healthy People 2020 news at www.healthypeople.gov.
The Coalition has been deeply involved with health care reform since the initial drafting of reform legislation, and we have developed numerous resources around implementation of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. These resources include Changing the Game: What Health Care Reform Means for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Americans and, with our partners in the New Beginning Initiative, a set of nine fact sheets around priority issues for the LGBT community in health care reform implementation. Please click here to learn more about our work on the creation, passage, and implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Thanks to the efforts of the National Coalition and its partners, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has instituted a number of policy changes and initiatives that connect the LGBT community with new opportunities to advocate for the importance of LGBT health. One of the Department's key early initiatives was the creation last year of a Department-wide LGBT Interagency Work Group, co-chaired by Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Howard Koh, Assistant Secretary for Aging Kathy Greenlee, and Assistant Secretary for Children and Families David Hansell. Other initiatives include new grants to LGBT organizations, the release of new regulations on nondiscrimination in hospital visitation, efforts to support the development of LGBT cultural competency, and institution of LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination requirements for all HHS employees. The full list of HHS activities over the last year, including several initiatives announced on April 1, 2011 to celebrate the 9th annual LGBT Health Awareness Week, can be found here. The Coalition has been in close communication with many divisions of HHS concerning the development of these and other priorities, including the Community Health Centers Program at HRSA, substance use and mental health services at SAMHSA, and the National Partnership for Action to Eliminate Health Disparities at OMH. We will continue to work with the Department to ensure the full implementation of these initiatives and to advance other important priorities.
This comprehensive report on the research gaps and opportunities in the field of LGBT health was commissioned from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) by the National Institutes of Health. A 17-member panel that included experts such as long-time Coalition partners Dr. Judith Bradford from the Fenway Institute, Dr. Harvey Makadon from Fenway Health, and Dr. Rob Garofalo from Howard Brown Health Center spent over a year compiling the report. The Coalition and many of its members and partners also participated in the development of the report through expert testimony and public comment to the committee. Check out the report, its recommendations, and a summary on the IOM website. The Coalition’s joint release about the report with the Gay & Lesbian Medical Association can be found here.
A significant body of literature, including the IOM report mentioned above, attests to the disparities that affect the health and wellbeing of LGBT individuals and their families. These disparities include less access to insurance and health care services, including preventive care such as cancer screenings; lower overall health status; and higher rates of chronic conditions, mental health concerns, substance use, sexual health concerns, and violence. All of these disparities are compounded by wide gaps in state and federal protections for LGBT people and their families against discrimination in areas such as health care, insurance, employment, relationship recognition, and housing.
A lack of standardized data collection on sexual orientation and gender identity severely hampers both government and community-based efforts to identify, track, and address LGBT health disparities. As Healthy People 2020 notes, “sexual orientation and gender identity questions are not asked on most national or State surveys, making it difficult to estimate the number of LGBT individuals and their health needs.” The Center for American Progress released a report in November 2010, The Power of the President: Recommendations to Advance Progressive Change, which calls on the Administration to undertake large-scale and routine collection of LGBT data on federally supported surveys. According to this report, “in the absence of accurate data, policymakers are often unable to assess the effectiveness of current policies in meeting the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people…[and] the lack of good data in policy debates and decisions increases the likelihood that stereotypes and myths will guide policies that impact LGBT Americans.”
The Coalition is committed to the importance of counting the LGBT population to ensure that our priorities count in decisions about policy, budgeting, and the national dialogue around health, civil rights, and social justice. Please contact us for more information about our work on sexual orientation and gender identity data collection.
The Coalition hosts an LGBT Health Awareness Week campaign every year. This year's campaign, under the theme "Come Out for Health," ran from March 28 - April 1, 2011. Our members and partners around the country, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Chase Brexton Health Services, the Human Rights Campaign, Mazzoni Center, the National Black Justice Coalition, and the LBGT Caucus of the American Academy of Physician Assistants, were busy throughout LGBT Health Awareness Week with celebrations of the strength and resiliency of the LGBT community and reminders of the importance of LGBT health. Check out more stories, resources, and ideas for keeping LGBT health in the news and on people’s minds throughout the year!
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a final rule governing nondiscrimination in hospital visitation. This new rule protects the right of all patients to designate and receive the visitors of their choice, including a same-sex spouse or a domestic partner, and requires the more than 6,000 hospitals participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs to not discriminate in visitation rights on the basis of factors including sexual orientation and gender identity. While we still have a long way to go toward ensuring that all members of the LGBT community are fully and consistently protected from discrimination in health care settings, these new hospital visitation protections are a significant federal recognition of the validity of LGBT people’s lives and relationships.
The final rule incorporates numerous suggestions made by the Coalition and its partner organizations, including the other members of the New Beginning Initiative at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Women's Law Center in coordination with Health Care for America Now! (HCAN). To see each set of comments, please click on each organization's name above. For the Coalition's full press release highlighting some of these changes, please click here.
The Coalition is working with partners such as the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Centerlink, and the Family Equality Council to expand the definition of family in federal regulations to increase access for people from diverse family structures, including LGBT people, immigrants, and racial and ethnic minorities. Read our recent blog piece with the National Partnership for Women and Families on why paid sick days matter to LGBT people and their families.
The LGBT-inclusive National Partnership for Action to Eliminate Health Disparities was released on April 8, 2011 by the Office of Minority Health (OMH). The Coalition applauds the broad inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity throughout the accompanying strategy and looks forward to working with its partners at OMH and in the LGBT community to eliminate health disparities such as those affecting the LGBT community, particularly LGBT people of color.
The Coalition works closely with key partners such as Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) on a number of legislative initiatives in the field of LGBT health. Recent priorities have included the FY2011 budget, the FY2012 budget, appropriations for the National Health Interview Survey, the Ending LGBT Health Disparities Act, the LGBT Older Americans Act, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the health care reform law). For more information about Representative Baldwin's amazing advocacy for LGBT health on the floor of Congress, check out her website.
The fifth revision of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is the text by which mental health practitioners diagnose mental illnesses and which insurance companies use to reimburse for mental health services. This manual has a particular impact on transgender and gender-variant people’s ability to access health care services. The Coalition submitted comments about the proposed revisions to diagnoses concerning diverse gender identities.
The Coalition joined numerous other LGBT advocacy organizations in submitting comments on how to implement the Prison Rape Elimination Act in order to best protect LGBT individuals in detention settings.
The Coalition worked quickly to provide the Obama Administration with information to improve LGBT health through federal-level change.