Monthly Updates From The Network

 

Monthly Updates From The Network

Last month we mentioned Dr. Scout’s Huffington Post OpEd urging NIH to accelerate their response to the LGBT IOM report. We are happy to say that this generated a few responses from HHS. First, we were assured the NIH response to the report would now include some level of external expert review. Second, Scout has been invited to present to NIH staff at their pride event next month. We’ve been working with students at Boston University to conduct an analysis of LGBT funding in the full NIH portfolio; while we had first planned for them to present the findings at APHA, we hope they might be ready to present directly to NIH at that pride event.

Last month we also reported that Gustavo was just leaving for the Promising Practices conference thrown by our sister network, Breakfree Alliance (the tobacco poverty disparity network). One of the main tenets of our work is to collect the community information and convert the good strategies into lessons that can be saved and shared nationally. So, Gustavo worked with Promising Practices participants to record and save as much information as possible. We are happy to report we already have nine new promising practices videos on our YouTube channel now and more to come.

At the request of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, Gustavo conducted a full day cultural competency training for their grantees and interested community partners. With over 60 folks in the room, participants interacted throughout the day and truly embraced this vital training. This is one of the Networks most requested trainings, and we are pleased to offer it to our state and community partners.

As a result of our advocacy to include LGBT populations in the new health care reform Community Transformation Grants we are pleased to report South Carolina included LGBT people as a target population for their award and this month Scout flew down there to give a talk on cultural competency as part of their statewide grantee training. Interestingly, this was the first time we used LGBT as a lens to present on general cultural competency. We’re happy to report the talk was very well received by the hundreds of attendees and we will have a printed version up in the coming month.

Scout followed this up with a trip to Minnesota for our ongoing technical assistance contract there. We’ve been helping Rainbow Health Initiative revamp their community health needs assessment by convening national experts to help advise on how this can be enhanced and also be a template for other localities to use. The new survey is finalized in Minnesota now and should launch nationally soon. We also have been doing a lot of work with the Southeast Asian tobacco network there. This trip we helped them revamp their wellness policy and create a new streamlined strategy to allow more community groups pass the policy. More news on that as we get a report on implementation.

Later, Gustavo was in Alaska invited as a Keynote speaker and presenter for the Alaska Tobacco Control Alliance statewide tobacco control conference. You can read the highlights on our blog. In addition to Alaska, Gustavo was the opening plenary speaker for the Minority Initiative Sub-Recipient Grant Office’s (MSRGO), 9th Annual Clearing the Air in Communities of Color in Arkansas. The opening address focused on reaching community through online social media platforms.

Despite all this travel most of our month was dedicated to preparing and submitting our largest and most complicated proposal to date, a $10M six state project on LGBT tobacco education. While we understand competition will be intense, we partnered with six different departments of health, five different community-based organizations, and many of the top LGBT media experts to create a strong project we hope will be a serious contender for this significant award. This is our third major proposal in the last year, as we enter the final year of this CDC disparity network award, we will continue to aggressively pursue all sustainability options.

 

Rounding out the month, Scout is now in Missouri as a guest presenter for their LGBT Health Access Roundtable series, he’ll be giving a talk today on LGBT Health Policy: National and Local Opportunities. We expect a video of the event to be up soon. Scout is actually flying directly from there to Milan Italy. We are pleased to report that he was one of a few people invited to the Rockefeller Foundation retreat center in Italy for a weeklong planning session with Sellers Dorsey Foundation staff on creating a new national (U.S.) LGBT health disparities project. We will report out on that event next month.

I am an Arkansas Traveler… Granted by the Secretary of State and Governor of the great state of Arkansas.

 

 

Gustavo Torrez, Program Manager

The Network for LGBT Health Equity 

I am an Arkansas Traveler

 

I have said this before, but I truly love Arkansas. As you know from my post last night I had the privilege of being asked to be the opening plenary speaker for the Minority Initiative Sub-Recipient Grant Office’s (MSRGO), 9^th Annual Clearing the Air in Communities of Color Conference. My opening address for this amazing conference focused on reaching community through online social media platforms.

But before I talk about that, I want to skip strait to the end of my presentation where I was bestowed the great honor of becoming The Arkansas Traveler. Its so funny, in my opening and closing I mentioned how the hospitality in Arkansas in unfound in most states I have been to. With this being my second trip to Arkansas, I have to say both times I have been treated with such respect. It’s a joy to come to Arkansas, and I have to say I was looking forward to speaking here even thought I have been on the road so much lately.  After speaking today, Ms. Ruthie Johnson, project specialist with MISRGO presented me with a certificate from the State of Arkansas, Secretary of State Mark Martin and signed by the governor. The Certificate (which will be framed and hung in my office) reads:

To all who shall see these presents, greetings:  Know Ye, that the governor of the State or Arkansas, in the name and by the authority of the people of said State, as vested in him by the constitution and laws of the State of Arkansas, reposing special recognition for the distinguished accomplishments, does hereby appoint and commission Gustavo Torrez (That’s me) as an Arkansas Traveler who is hereby authorized and commissioned to serve as an Ambassador of good will from Arkansas to the people of other states, the people of nations beyond the borders of the United States or wherever this Ambassador of Arkansas may hereafter travel or reside.

This was such an honor and further proves the point why I love Arkansas so much.

Anyways back to MSRGO… They are already utilizing social media platforms to advance their message. Their Blog is a great resource locally, to learn about information and the work they are conducting in the great state of Arkansas, and the also have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Now is the time to get grantees and others onboard with posting the work they are doing. It is vital that we share our successes, and utilize these platforms to showcase and house the work we do. It is important to look at how we can utilize social media strategies to advance our programs reach. There is a great resource created by the CDC such as the Social Media Toolkit. While a bit long it has a lot of great resources for you to being or continue building your social media presence. Like I mentioned today, you don’t need to read the whole thing cover to cover, but go strait to the sections that you are first interested in.

Connecticut and Arkansas… Expanding services to be more culturally competent

 

 

 

Gustavo Torrez, Program Manager

The Network for LGBT Health Equity 

On the road again… Welcome to Arkansas 

 

 On Monday I was on the road to Connecticut where I conducted Cultural Competency Training for the Connecticut Department of Health yesterday and today, I just arrived in Little Rock, and drove to Pine Bluff where I will be conducting a training on Reaching Community Through Online and Social Media Platforms tomorrow. As you may or may not know the Network conducts some amazing trainings from cultural competency, to coalition building, and even on social medial strategies for your work. Honestly the list goes on. As you may or may not know if you are interested in us speaking or training at your event most commonly we conduct the trainings free of charge all requesting agencies have to pay for our travel. One or our most requested trainings is our Cultural Competency Training. This valuable resource has been offered across the country, and continues to make a huge impact with states and programs looking to increase awareness, and providing training for staff on how to be more cultural competent, identifying both personal and organization strategies to effectively become more inclusive of the LGBT Population.

Below I have outlined this interactive workshop presentation for folks that might be interested.

• Intro to the Network for LGBT Health Equity
• LGBT Cultural Competency 101
• LGBT Health Disparities
• Reaching LGBTs – Part 1: LGBTs in my state, community access points & structures
• Reaching LGBTs – Part 2: Local Community Perspective
• Serving LGBTs – Part 1: State Best Practices
• Serving LGBTs – Part 2: Enhancing LGBT access for your agency & Strategies for your work
• ACTION PLANNING

This is the same training conducted in Arkansas a while back. So with the training that will be conducted tomorrow, Reaching Community Through Online and Social Media Platforms, I will be addressing strategies to increase your work utilizing social media platforms showcasing some of the networks sites and providing a baseline understanding for the top social media platforms the network utilized.  One of which is our blog. For those of you who are not on the social medial train, I encourage you to watch this video, as it is one we show before all of your training regarding social medial to really set the tone on the importance of this work.

Missed the Trans Health webinar Last Week? It’s okay, we’ve got you covered.

 

 

The Network for LGBT health Equity

An insider’s view of informative info…

Reporting on HHS’s Transgender Health Webinar

 

 

 

In the interest of keeping you in the loop, we wanted to provide some updates and resources about something GROUNDBREAKING- Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hosted a first-of-it’s-kind webinar, called “A Healthy People 2020 Spotlight on LGBT Health: Transgender Health”!

Managed by HHS and launched in December 2010, Healthy people 2020 is a set of 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. One of the overarching goals of Healthy People 2020 is to “Achieve health equity, eliminate disparities, and improve the health of all groups”, andddddd Healthy People 2020 is way cooler than in past decades because it includes a section on LGBT Health!

“During the past 2 decades, 1 of Healthy People’s overarching goals has focused on disparities. In Healthy People 2000, it was to reduce health disparities among Americans. In Healthy People 2010, it was to eliminate, not just reduce, health disparities. In Healthy People 2020, that goal was expanded even further: to achieve health equity, eliminate disparities, and improve the health of all groups.” (read more HERE)

As you can see above, this decade’s Healthy People is kind of our jam. And good news! If you missed the webinar (or if you would like to relive the experience), you can listen to a recording HERE! It comes highly recommended, not only because it was informative and relevant, but because it was also momentous and full of some seriously inspirational names in Transgender Health!

Tobacco Control in Alaska: North to the Future

 

Gustavo Torrez, Program Manager

The Network for LGBT Health Equity 

My Time in Alaska…

 

 

All I can say is WOW things have been busy…. I wanted to take a moment to recap on my time in Alaska for a moment. As you may have read in my last post I was an invited keynote speaking in Nome, Alaska. Home of the finish line for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Nome is truly a small town. Located next to the the Bering Sea, which was frozen as far as I could see (which was an amazing sight!), Nome’s population is around 3500 people.  

Nome was truly a charm, but I have to say, it is always amazing to speak at a conference with passionate, focused, and driven folks working hard to eliminate tobacco disparities in their community. As an invited speaker for the Alaska Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) statewide tobacco control summit, I took the job to heart. As some of you may know I have family in Alaska and the folks working to protect their community from secondhand smoke are protecting my family as well. So for me to see the commitment that participants had to their work was such a joy.

My first day in Nome, I had the opportunity to sit in on their ATCA steering committee meeting. Made up of representatives from each of the seven regions, this committee’s passion is unfound in most. Day two, I had the joy of working with the young people at the summit. As a former youth advocate I understand the importance of young people in this movement..and these young people were outstanding! After 3 and a half hours I was a bit tired but we had a great time. I spoke about my journey in tobacco control, my struggles, and my commitment which has led me to be where I am today. We worked on a group activity “I AM” where the youth created a page on who they were and presented it back to the group. The pages were compiled and made into a fun booklet for them to take home.

Day three was jammed packed…. I started the morning doing a keynote address with my friend Dan Carrigan, from Americans for Non Smokers Rights. We spoke on expanding  reach and utilizing partnerships to advance your movement. Shortly after, I had a Lunch Keynote: Reaching Community Through Online and Social Media Platforms. Following that I had back to back workshops titled Coalition Building: Uniting A Community To Take Action. Overall, I felt great about my time at the conference. As folks in Alaska gear up for a smoke free Alaska campaign, you can feel the excitement and passion as they utilize the conference to get ready for the road ahead. I look forward to our continued work with all of these amazing folks!

LEY vs POLITICA Ponencia preparada para una de las reuniones del Comité Anti Discrimen, Departamento de Justicia, PR.

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  Sophia  Isabel Marrero Cruz Community Advocacy & Empowerment Advisor       “Las agresiones en contra de personas Trans van desde las sicológicas: desprecio, rechazo, bromas, hasta las violentas: agresiones verbales/físicas, golpes, heridas y en los casos más violentos la muerte. Pero lo mas sorprendente son las “no agresiones” que reciben de las estructuras [...]

Back On The Grid… Blogging From Alaska

Gustavo Torrez, Program Manager

The Network for LGBT Health Equity 

Heading to Alaska 

I am officially back on the grid, but still on the road. As many of you know I was in New Orleans creating videos for our YouTube channel helping to document all of the amazing work going on across the country. In total, we have about 9 new videos up, We will be adding abstracts documenting these amazing projects soon, highlighting both lessons learned, as well as best and promising practices for tobacco control. In addition, we will have a couple more videos posted this week, one in Spanish from our friend Juan Carlos Vega from Puerto Rico so make sure you check back to catch them all.

Leaving New Orleans, I took a little break and enjoyed some vacation time where I was off the grid completely, but I am back and left Miami this morning and just arrived to my hotel in Alaska. As an invited keynote speaker I have a couple different roles at the Alaska Tobacco Control Alliance statewide tobacco control conference that I am very excited about.

First, on Wednesday, I will be working with the youth attendees. As some of you may know I started in the tobacco control movement when I was 12 years old, so I love working with young people in the movement. The session titled  ”I AM…” will looking at issues facing young people today, and how uniting together in the tobacco control movement not only helps to improve their communities, but can have an impact on their lives.

Day two is jammed packed, and I will be pretty busy most of the day. I will be opening the day with a joint keynote address with Dan Carrigan, program manager with Americans for Non-Smokers Rights. The session titled Deepening Your Bench will open the discussion on the importance of building diverse, and inclusive coalitions and partnerships to advance local, regional, and statewide movements.

In the afternoon, as the luncheon keynote speaker I will address the Networks social media strategies, and ways to effectively incorporate social media into your programs and campaigns. I will showcase a great video Social Media Revolution (A must see), and show participants some of the back end operations to alleviate the perceived stress of utilizing these platforms.

Closing out the day I will be facilitating back to back workshops focused on coalition building. We will look at effective coalition building strategies and start identifying partners and collaborators to bring to the table as Alaska gets ready to work on a statewide smoke free campaign.

I am pleased to be an invited Keynote speaker, and to be joined by some other amazing presenters, such as Bruce Adkins, from West Virginia and Janet Porter, from Break-Free Alliance. I will post another blog later this week on the happenings from Nome, so stay tuned…

Getting cozy with the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act

 

The Network for LGBT Health Equity

An insider’s view of informative info…

 

 

 

 

 

Hello all!

Over here at the Network we are VERY impressed with the user-friendliness of the FDA’s website on the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Act.

The Act, which became law in June 2009, gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products to protect public health in the United States. The Tobacco Control Act does many things, including restricting tobacco sales to youth, inspection of tobacco companies, requires warning labels on tobacco products, and much more. For a full overview of the Act, click HERE.

The infograph, seen below, illustrates the history, rationale and major events associated with the Act.

(You can also download and print the infograph!)

And, if you want to poke around the Act or look up information, you can search by “audience”, “types of tobacco” and “topics” or the table of contents.

Hot or Not? “Tips From Former Smokers” Campaign

 

By Daniella Matthews-Trigg

Program Associate

Tips From Former Smokers Campaign

 

 

 

 

By now you’ve probably noticed the new anti-smoking campaign sweeping the nation and your television… The campaign, “Tips from Former Smokers” is by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) campaign  and has been getting lots of attention because of it’s graphic imagery and shocking stories.

The campaign highlights the stories of real people who are suffering the results of smoking related health effects, such as throat cancer, stroke and asthma. The campaign is focused around “tips” from them, such as “When you have a hole in your neck, don’t face the shower head”. The “tips” are poignant and emphasize the simple and powerful message that smoking has consequences.

Criticisms of the campaign are that the images are gratuitous and alarmist. However, studies show that anti-smoking messages such as these, which feature both an emotionally charged message that illustrates the impact of long-term tobacco use as well as encouragement and information about how to quit, are the most effective.

The CDC is also focusing their message toward target audiences with higher rates of tobacco use, including the LGBT community. “Tips” video ads are being aired on Logo during especially popular shows (shout out to RuPaul’s Drag Race!) in addition to paper ads in LGBT magazines.

For more information on the campaign, check out the CDC’s page HERE and you can access (and share) all of the videos HERE.

 

LGBT health needs rendered invisible- AGAIN!

 

 

By Barbara E. Warren, Psy.D.

New York City, NY

 ”Up In Smoke, Again”

 

 

 

Up in Smoke, Again….

On March 29th, the Surgeon General’s office released its latest and long awaited report on youth and smoking
” Preventing Tobacco use Among Youth and Young Adults” “an eagerly awaited and much heralded 920 page document replete with meta- analyses of national and state tobacco surveillance data, recommendations, and documentation of disparities among sub-populations . The report is intended to provide irrefutable and science-based evidence that there is a significant relationship between anti-smoking interventions, non-initiation of smoking by young people and health promotion. The report is also intended to insure the ongoing allocation of government and private resources, including funding, to prevent initiation of smoking among youth and to target prevention efforts to address significant youth population disparities.

As a staunch and dedicated smoking cessation advocate and practitioner for more than two decades, I welcomed the rigor of this report in providing the best and most reliable evidence possible to thwart the still powerful resources of the pro-tobacco lobby. The report is formidable in this regard but it also broke my heart; with all that we do now know about the disproportionate disparities in tobacco use among LGBT persons and in particular, among our most vulnerable LGBT youth, in 968 pages there was only one small line that mentioned LGBT affected communities: Limited, if any, surveillance data exists for other demographic subgroups known to have higher rates of tobacco use (e.g., the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans¬gender community; Lee et al. 2009), so are not explored.

Not even explored? Once again, in the name of science or evidence, in a major and most influential government report, LGBT needs were rendered invisible, despite that we now know more, have more evidence, than ever before, to document and support the higher prevalence of smoking among LGBT youth and young adults.

Despite that the report itself, cites a thorough and stellar systematic review of LGBT tobacco data from 42 studies, wherein 119 measures of tobacco prevalence or association were reported and from which , the “available evidence points to disparities in smoking among sexual minorities that are significantly higher than among the general population” .

Despite the availability of smoking data from the 20 states that now collect sexual orientation information and smoking prevalence on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a source used extensively in this report.

Despite the evidence in this report for the efficacy of anti-smoking media and messaging that has high emotional resonance for youth, for community specific, community level interventions that reach youth populations in their own communities, for the need for further studies of prevention approaches that will continue to be effective in smoking prevention for disparity populations.

Despite the call to action throughout this report to stay vigilant on tobacco control and smoking prevention for the next generations, or as Dr. Thomas Freidan, Director of the CDC and nationally renowned tobacco control expert and advocate says in his foreword: Reducing tobacco use is a winnable battle. We have the science and, with additional effort and support for evidence-based, cost-effective strategies that we can implement now, we will improve on our nation’s health and our children’s future.

For those of us who continue to work for a healthier and smoke free future for our LGBT young people, the lack of inclusion in this report is more than disappointing; it is unconscionable. We call upon the Surgeon General and all of those concerned for the future health and well-being of all of our children not to let the dreams and aspirations of our LGBT youth yet again, go up in smoke.

Tobacco use among sexual minorities in the USA, 1987 to May 2007: a systematic review.
Lee JG, Griffin GK, Melvin CL. Tob Control. 2009 Aug;18(4):275-82. Epub 2009 Feb 10.

Barbara E. Warren, Psy.D. is a longtime advocate for LGBT health equity. She was recently appointed to the New York State Department of Health’s Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Advisory Board and serves as Director for LGBT Health Services at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.