Health

LGBT HealthLink Grades States on LGBT Tobacco Integration

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LGBT Health Link

Ft. Lauderdale, FL – December 10, 2014 – LGBT HealthLink today announced the first ever grades for state tobacco programs’ LGBT inclusion practices. The grades, based on a survey of best practices originally conducted in 2013 and updated this fall, represent an assessment of the overall progress each state has made in addressing inclusion, including policies, training, data collection, and community engagement. Grades span from “A” to “F”, with the average across states a “C+”.

LGBT people smoke at rates that are over 50% higher than the general population and experience profound health disparities in both cancer and smoking-related disease. The survey was developed to bring transparency to how successful states are at integrating this disproportionately affected population into their overall tobacco control work.

According to Daniella Matthews-Trigg, Administrator of LGBT HealthLink, “The results of this survey not only illustrate the work that needs to be done, but highlights the impressive efforts by many states. Our hope is that creating a system for comparison will motivate states to adopt as many best practices as possible, thereby improving acceptance and wellness in LGBTQ communities around the country”. LGBT HealthLink is offering resources to each state to improve their grades.

For several years, LGBT HealthLink (formerly the Network for LGBT Health Equity) has been circulating “Identifying and Eliminating LGBT Tobacco Disparities”, a document outlining the best practices for state programs in LGBT tobacco control, and working closely with states to implement them. These report cards are intended to gauge adoption of those best practices at a state level and create a baseline for future work.

The release of the report cards comes just after the CDC’s Office of Smoking and Health recently accepted applications from states for their next five years of tobacco funding. Dr. Scout, Director of LGBT HealthLink, noted that “In order to eliminate the LGBT smoking disparity, we need to make sure the tobacco control community targets us just like the tobacco industry already does.”

Matthews-Trigg emphasized how closely HealthLink is working with states improve their grades, “We are the people providing technical assistance to these states to do this well, so this is really a report card of our work as much as theirs. We look forward to continuing our work with the many amazing state representatives to get these grades even higher.”

View the report cards: www.lgbthealthlink.org/Report-Cards/2014

For more about the methodology and scoring:
www.lgbthealthlink.org/Report-Cards

Ref.: Costa Rica Drug Rehab.

National Youth HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

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National Youth HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day is an annual observance that takes place on April 10. The first ever National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day took place on April 10, 2015.

Today’s young people are the first generation who have never known a world without HIV and AIDS. In the United States, one in four new HIV infections is among youth ages 13 to 24. Every month 1,000 young people are infected with HIV and over 76,400 young people are currently living with HIV across the country. While there has been much talk about an AIDS-Free Generation, we know that is not possible without our nation’s youth. Young people and their allies are determined to end this epidemic once and for all and this day is a way to acknowledge the great work young people are already engaging in to do so.

National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day will be celebrated all across the country. There will be events hosted by various organizations and individuals in high schools, colleges, churches, community centers and more! There also will be opportunities for online participation.

Find out more at www.youthaidsday.org

 

 

 

Great American Condom Campaign

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Great American Condom Campaign

Applications to become a Great American Condom Campaign Spring Semester SafeSite are now open!

The Great American Condom Campaign is a youth-led grassroots movement to reduce unintended pregnancies and the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections by normalizing condom use on college and university campuses. Students from across the country apply to become SafeSites, individual condom distribution points, and upon selection receive a box of 500 Trojan condoms to distribute to their peers. SafeSites are also tasked with educating their peers about safer sex and advocating on campus and within their community for the sexual and reproductive health and rights of young people.

The Great American Condom Campaign is a program of Advocates for Youth.  In the past academic year, 2,600 SafeSites distributed more than 1,300,000 condoms to students on 1,234 campuses. SafeSites were established in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Sound like fun? Apply for the GACC NOW!

We receive more applications than we can accept, so make sure your application stands out! Be clear about how you will distribute condoms and why you want to be part of the GACC. To learn more about the GACC and the awesome work of previous SafeSites, go to the GACC Facebook page.

Applications to be a Fall Semester SafeSite are open through December 31st, 2014. It only takes 10 minutes to fill out an application, so start now!

Do it for your country.

National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

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National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

HIV affects all people, but some communities have been particularly hard hit. Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV today, half are Black. Black Americans are disproportionately affected by HIV relative to their share of the U.S. population, accounting for 44% of all new infections in the U.S. while representing just 12% of the population. The epidemic has touched many lives. According to a national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, three in five Black Americans now know someone living with HIV or who has died of AIDS.

National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD) is an HIV testing and treatment community mobilization initiative for Blacks in the United States and across the Diaspora.

There are four specific focal points: Get Educated, Get Tested, Get Involved, and Get Treated. Find out more at: www.nationalblackaidsday.org.

LGBT Healthcare Bill of Rights

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Bill of Rights

At the 2011 National Coalition for LGBT Health Meeting, LGBT HealthLink’s Director, Dr. Scout, concluded a presentation by suggesting our communities really needed to create a healthcare bill of rights. The response from the experts in attendance was overwhelming; dozens of experts chimed in to concur. In the years since, our healthcare rights have only expanded yet public understanding about those rights – which is critical to their effectiveness – has not kept pace. For example, very few people know that any hospital accredited by the Joint Commission must now have an LGBT nondiscrimination policy. Or that health insurers in the new marketplaces cannot discriminate either. Making this problem worse, even healthcare institutions are not fully educated about these changes. Most hospitals that were approached by PROMO, the LGBT equality organization for Missouri, could show no evidence of having an LGBT nondiscrimination policy in place. We have many new rights, and now more than ever we need to understand what they are to get the healthcare we deserve.

In 2014, LGBT HealthLink partnered with PROMO Missouri and lawyer Corey Prachniak from Washington DC to create a short document summarizing our rights in the healthcare world now. A few of these rights are aspirational, they have protections in most cases but not a blanket ruling protecting all cases. We have included them because we feel we need to outline the moral rights as well as those which already enjoy full legal protection. After working closely with healthcare policymakers for years, we know the intent is to treat us with full equality and fairness. Outright hostility or chilly climates around LGBT people no longer have a place in health care. We know discrimination is a major reason LGBT people experience profound health disparities now; it needs to be part of our past.

The first step is to be educated about our rights and stand up when they are not met.

Learn more at: www.healthcarebillofrights.org

Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

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National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

Every year National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is observed on May 19th.  The event is sponsored by The Banyan Tree Project, a national campaign to end the silence and shame surrounding HIV/AIDS in Asian and Pacific Islander communities—is the lead for this day. National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is one of several HIV/AIDS Awareness Days recognized by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.