Statewide LGBT Health Initiative takes off in Arkansas

 

 

 

Gustavo Torrez

Program Manager

The Network for LGBT Health Equity

 

 

As you may have see by my last post: Arkansas taking major efforts to reduce LGBT Tobacco and Health Disparities, great things are happening in Arkansas.

The Network is pleased to be facilitating the development of this joint initiative supported by the Minority Initiative Sub-Recipients Grants Office (MISRGO) and the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH).

Over the past two days, I have been working with local community groups, MISRGO & DOH on discussing priorities for the groups, and we are pleased to announce the first initial project will be a statewide LGBTQ needs assessment. With an expected launch day of June 1^st, we look forward to moving the project forward. With June being PRIDE month, there will be many opportunities to promote the needs assessment.

Our next visit will be May 20^th, 2013 where we will convene the group at the Center for Artistic Revolution (CAR), Arkansas CenterLink Affiliate. As the leading youth LGBTQ center in Arkansas there is no better place to host the next meeting.

Just a little side note… We first introduced CAR to both MISRGO and ADH during our first visit to Arkansas back over two years ago during our cultural competency training sponsored by MISRGO. As part of our formal partnership with CenterLink and Equality Federation, we always reach out to both groups to identify local affiliates before we conduct such trainings. By incorporating local LGBT groups into our trainings we are not only providing local perspective, but access points to assist in understanding and reaching the LGBT community in the respective state.

Anyways, during our next visit to Arkansas we will focus on developing a dissemination plan for the needs assessment with a focus on both, the youth/young adult populations as well as minority populations throughout Arkansas.

We look forward to further development of the initiative, and working with both MISRGO and ADH collectively in an effort to reduce LGBT health disparities in Arkansas.

Nebraska Travelogue: Smokeless Diva Drag Pageant?

Scout, Ph.D.

Director, The Fenway Institute’s Network for LGBT Health Equity

Uh-oh met the great tobacco team over at U of Nebraska Medical Center and boy have they upped the game! Little did I know they already have an LGBT outreach person working on tobacco control, the great Ariss Rogel Mendoza. And our old friend Antonia Correa has been running a great Latinas Tabaco y Cancer group. And some of the Latina group were major drivers in organizing last weekend’s… no, I’m not lying… Smokeless Diva Drag Pageant. Wow! How many other states have community level LGBT tobacco control activities now? And the stories from it were great, the winner’s father died of lung cancer, so she went all out, even making dresses incorporating bits & pieces of tobacco marketing materials.

So if they’re already running tobacco control drag pageants here in Nebraska, my only question is… how in the world do I help move them forward?

Wow, so much glitter. The crowning of the smokeless diva drag queen!

Ariss, Antonia, & Athena – the Latina powerteam working on tobacco a U Nebraska Med Ctr – Ctr on DIsparities.

Upcoming Webinar: The LGBTQ community and Cancer- Health Equality in the Era of the ACA

 

 

Francisco O. Buchting, Ph.D.

Buchting Consulting – Principal

Steering Committee Member

 

 

 

 

The LGBTQ community and Cancer- Health Equality in the Era of the ACA

Monday April 15, 2013 (11am Pacific) 2:00-3:30 PM EST

April is National Minority Health Month, and to celebrate,  join us April 15th as we discuss the importance of understanding the impact of Cancer in the LGBTQ community and the role of
the ACA in providing more equity in health.
We will try to significantly raise your awareness to the distinct challenges of eliminating
health disparities and promoting health equity among the LGBTQ community and the
effective efforts to improve the health of these diverse communities across the cancer
continuum

Speakers:

To register for this meeting:

1. Go to https://premconf.webex.com/premconf/j.php?ED=204747812&RG=1&UID=0&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D

2. Register for the meeting.

Once the host approves your request, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for joining the meeting. To view in other time zones or languages, please click the link: https://premconf.webex.com/premconf/j.php?ED=204746377&RG=1&UID=0&ORT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D

For assistance: 1. Go to https://premconf.webex.com/premconf/mc 2. On the left navigation bar, click “Support”. You can contact: lisa.oliver@cancer.org

To participate only in the audio portion:  Call-in toll-free number (Premiere): 1-888-757-2790 Call-in number (Premiere): 1-719-359-9722 Attendee access code: 329671

March Updates from the Network

 

 

 

 

Gustavo Torrez

Program Manager

The Network for LGBT Health Equity

 

 

Some major events have been taking place here at the Network, but first it’s all about CDC’s Tips campaign series. On March 4^th, CDC launched its second phase of the Tips campaign series with popular ads from last years “Tips from Former Smokers” Campaign.  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 the people in the campaign, 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. While a successful campaign, there were no tailored LGBT ads initially created. After advocating and working with CDC, an LGBT focused ad was created for social media and web use. The Network provided assistance to CDC to help them better understand the LGBT market and venues to promote the campaign and played a leadership role urging inclusion of all disparity communities in the Tips 2 campaign. Next month we will see the new Tips 2 ads released, and look forward to more comprehensive inclusion of disparity communities, including messaging and ad buys geared toward the LGBT community.

In an effort to continually provide resources to Quitlines, the Network partnered with the North American Quitline Consortium to offer a webinar titled Strategies for Building LBGT Faith and Confidence in Quitlines. We were pleased to hear how many years allies have been advocating for LGBT inclusion in their local quitlines using our resources and leadership. Never giving up, some were more successful than other, but they are still advocating. The sheer passion for inclusion was remarkable and to our surprise immediately after the call we were approached by three states that would like training and technical assistance resources on adding SO/GI measures to their Quitlines.

As you are aware from our last report, we submitted a TA proposal to the Missouri Foundation for Health which we are pleased to report was funded. The new project is centered around policy change initiatives allowing the Network the flexibility to develop a replicable policy change initiative model that can be duplicated across the country. Ensuring no time was wasted, Scout and Gustavo hit the road to St. Louis to conduct the first in-person TA meeting with the local partners. Our two day meeting focused on Asset Mapping and looking at both internal and external opportunities to influence the project goals and objectives. Click here to learn more about this exciting new project.

The Network is also pleased to have tobacco control folks from across the country in Boston for the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco 19th Annual International Meeting. This year there are 7 posters presentations that address LGBT communities. We are highlighting the posters through a series of blogs, click here to view.

In closing, Dr. Scout had a new blog on the Huffington Post titled ʺWho can really stop smokingʺ which is a must read. In addition, as a follow-up to the Sellers Dorsey LGBT health retreat at the Rockefeller Foundation Center in Italy last year, this month Dr. Scout was invited to submit a proposal for a writing residency at the Rockefeller Center. His proposed project focused on transgender health policy change. If funded he would be one of only a few writers ever invited to focus on LGBT issues.

LGBT Health Policy Changes Coming to Missouri – Network Provides Technical Assistance

 

 

Gustavo Torrez

Program Manager

The Network for LGBT Health Equity

Last week Scout and I hit the road and headed to St. Louis MO. to work on a new Technical Assistance contract funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH). For those of you who are unaware, MFH has a long standing history of funding innovative projects to reduce health disparities in their state.

The Project is solely focused on health policy change initiatives, which is huge, allowing us the flexibility to develop a replicable policy change initiative model that can be used across the country. The best part about it is both groups have amazing folks working on the project who all have a vested interest in reducing health disparities, with a focus in tobacco control. The current project is a 6 month start-up with a goal of long term sustainable funding.  As the lead on the project, the Network is working in partnership with two local funded groups:

PROMO a statewide organization advocating for equality through legislative action, electoral politics, grassroots organizing, and community education, and

SAGE: a program focused on enhancing the lives of LGBT older adults through service, advocacy and community awareness.

Sherrill Wayland, SAGE Executive Director, Tracy McCreery – PROMO Public Policy Manager, Gustavo Torrez Network Program Manager, Dr. Scout, Network Program Director

Our two day meeting focused on Asset Mapping to being looking at both internal and external opportunities to influence the project goals and objectives. For those of you who are unaware of Asset Mapping, it is an exercise that helps groups/individuals create a “map” of available resources, and opportunities in the respective community. The goal is to create a complete (or as close to complete) picture of the current opportunities, community’s strengths and needs as we begin to work on policy initiatives for the state. One of the main benefits of Asset Mapping is bring folks to the table to have open dialogue about the community’s resources and readiness to initiate and outline further opportunities as a group building a unified vision for the group.Asset Mapping is mutually beneficial for both the Network to help to address challenges and barriers as they arrive but also to help all parties at the table to truly get to know community partners and organizations to being to set the stage for sustainable, long lasting working relationships. In addition, it helps to identify, community assets, resources issues, gaps in services, and areas for further coordination and collaboration.

We look forward to the next phase of this project and our continued work with staff at both Promo and SAGE. We will be sure to update you all on the success, and learning opportunities we encounter moving forward.

February Updates From The Network

As we closed out January leading into February the Network had full representation at this year’s Creating Change 2013 Conference (CC13). Joined by our Blogging Scholarship Recipient Alex Aldana along with two guest bloggers Josh Gale and Trevoi Crump from National Youth Pride Services, we were able to showcase many of the great workshops and events that took place at CC13.

Every year at Creating Change the Network facilitates an education campaign; this year we launched our Governors Initiative. This is a community based best practices initiative focused on bridging the gap between LGBT individuals and health by engaging them to send a postcard to their governor asking if LGBT health best practices are being implemented in their state. We have printed four questions on the postcards, each based on our MPOWERED best practices: Does the state collect LGBT data as a routine part of all health surveys (such as BRFSS & YRBS), are health department and grantee staff trained in LGBT cultural competency and health disparities, are LGBT people included in community advisory bodies, are LGBT images routinely reflected in public health promotional materials? We are very pleased to report we already have postcards collected for thirty different states.

This month Gustavo visited Arkansas for the third time, this time expanding his technical assistance to a broader group of stakeholders from across the Arkansas Department of Health. On this trip, we’re pleased to report they launched a strategy we’d been suggesting to them on prior trips, the creation of an Arkansas LGBT Tobacco & Health Coalition. They are also implementing a larger scale LGBT integration strategy across the state department of health. To help this strategy Gustavo was able to meet with state health representatives from grants management, cessation, media, chronic disease, and HIV, among others. Gustavo also facilitated the largest LGBT health meeting in the state, a convening of 30 different community and state stakeholders beginning the work on their LGBT tobacco & health action plan. In order to strengthen the work in Arkansas, the Network is collaborating with The National LGBT Health Education Center here at the Fenway Institute, who has done some training with the University of Arkansas’ Medical Campus. As is our policy, we connected local state representatives with the local community based organizations that are part of CenterLink and the Equality Federation. In this case, Gustavo arranged for state staff to visit the Center for Artistic Revolution. We couldn’t be more pleased with Arkansas’ willingness to put best practice guidelines into the field and look forward to subtantive local changes as a result.

In a similar story, one of the states with whom we have been doing years of work had a success this month. West Virginia was the state that first asked us to outline the science justifying LGBT data collection, spurring our LGBT Tobacco Surveillance Briefing Paper. We’re happy to report this month their tobacco data release was led by the news of the LGBT smoking disparity, news that ultimately gained them coverage in the biggest state newspaper. See the story, including our quotes here.

In other assorted notes this month, the Network submitted an invited proposal to the Missouri Foundation for Health to provide Technical Assistance to a local health policy project. Dr. Scout submitted a section on tobacco for a forthcoming book, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves. He has also been confirmed as the plenary speaker for Nebraska’s state tobacco conference in April. As follow-up to the last month’s request to Sebelius for more funded LGBT tobacco research, we also had a meeting with the head of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, Dr. Lawrence Deyton. FDA’s CTP is investing heavily in new tobacco regulatory research. Dr. Deyton was very open to suggestions on how to ensure LGBT people (and all disparity populations) were included in the range of tobacco research; look for more information on that initiative in coming months.

Tobacco Control In LGBT Communities: A journey through this valuable report

As I am sure you are aware on Tuesday Legacy released a new report: Tobacco Control In LGBT Communities. This report is another to hit the national stage to address the growing concern of tobacco use and the affect it has on LGBT people. The layout of this report is quite nice, first addressing Legacy’s role in the movement, but more importantly highlighting the prevalence rates, and the fact data collection efforts needs to continue so we can monitor tobacco use in our communities.

While there are a lot of numbers folks who appreciate the data, sometimes the data does not truly share the full story. The report has a great section, Behind the Numbers: Tobacco and LGBT Communities. Which paints the story of why tobacco use is and continues to be an issues among our communities. It looks at Social Stigma and Smoking, the Bar and Club Culture, addressing health care disparities and the lack of access to health care our communities face. In addition they showcase tobacco industry targeting, and how smoking is normalized in our community in such a way that it has truly infiltrated our lives and LGBT culture overall. Additionally it goes in to the efforts the tobacco industry took in co-opting our community, and how tobacco companies were characterized as pioneers who stood in solidarity with our communities which is such a fascinating read.

We all know that there is a long standing history of LGBT people and tobacco. The report addresses some key points on what needs to be done moving forward with a set of actions public health and tobacco control organizations can take to counter tobacco in our communities:

• Engage directly with the LGBT community to offer cessation and prevention services that are culturally competent.
• Include questions on sexual orientation and gender identity in population-based studies and surveys of health status.
• Develop better and more standardized questions about sexual orientation and gender identity so a better picture of LGBT populations can be drawn.
• Conduct longitudinal cohort studies, which follow participants over long periods of time.
• Include, at all levels, LGBT people in mainstream tobacco control efforts.
• Develop tobacco control media campaigns targeting LGBT communities.
• Help LGBT communities and organizations find alternatives to tobacco industry funding.
• Include LGBT youth in all levels of tobacco control efforts.
• Ensure that the leadership of LGBT tobacco control efforts represents all LGBT communities, including traditionally disenfranchised segments such as transgender people, lesbian and bisexual women, people of color, LGBT youth, and LGBT people of lower socioeconomic status.

In the second part of this report it showcases four case studies of past legacy grantees. Leave no Funds Behind, which was a project the Network created working on Bridging the Gap Between LGBT Organizations and Tobacco Control Funding. As well as, Delicious Lesbian Kisses: A Social Marketing Campaign with Staying Power, Crush: The LGBT Lifestyle Project, and 30 Seconds: Helping Health Care Providers Reach LGBT Tobacco Users were all highlighted.

I highly recommend you take a look at this report, and share both the report and the factsheet created by legacy:

Tobacco Control In LGBT Communities Report

Tobacco Fact Sheet: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (Lgbt) communities and smoking

LGBT Tobacco Control Efforts Taking The Spotlight

 

 

Gustavo Torrez

Program Manager

The Network for LGBT Health Equity

MPOWERED: Taking on CDC 

LGBT Communities smoke at rates 68% higher than the general population there is much work to be done to protect, and preserve our community, and many reasons that this disparity exists. Yesterday, Legacy released a report titled Tobacco Control in LGBT Communities.

To mark the release, Legacy hosted a panel discussion as part of their Warner lecture Series Tobacco Use in the LGBT Communities: Why LGBT People Smoke So Much & What Can Be Done About It . The panel took place at the Human Rights Campaign Headquarters in DC.

For those of you who watched the live webcast, I am sure you can agree that this was a hugely dynamic group of folks, speaking with both passion and commitment about working to reduce the health disparities affecting our communities. While the focus was LGBT Tobacco Control, there was a lot of discussion about the intersectionality of tobacco and other health disparities that affect disparity communities. Next week, the webcast will be available on the Legacy archive, and we highly recommend you check it out if you missed the webinar yesterday!

Also, if you’re on twitter, you can search #warnerseries to see the blow-by-low live tweeting from the event!

Last year the American Lung Association released their report: Smoking Out The Deadly Threat, and the panel yesterday was yet another exciting moment when a national organization released a report addressing the issues and challenges around tobacco use in the LGBT community.

As the tides shift both on a national and local level, we are so excited to see the growing support for comprehensive inclusion of LGBT communities in Tobacco Prevention and Control!

Check out this amazing video shown at the event

More to come about this exciting event…

New Online Resource: LGBT Wellness Needs Assessment

In exciting news: The Network is currently finalizing an online LGBT Wellness Needs Assessment tool. The survey will be nationally applicable, permanently housed on our Zoomerang account, and will be easy and free to access for interested state-level, community-level, and grassroots-level organizations. We have been working closely with a group of stakeholders to create what we are sure will be hugely useful and usable!

Stay tuned!!!

Would you like to receive a copy of the Needs Assessment (either via email or snail mail) as soon as it’s completed?! Fill out the form and we will send it over as soon as it’s ready!

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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…