Sexual and Gender Minority Health Curricula and Institutional Support Services at U.S. Schools of Public Health

Abstract

Limited research has examined the ways in which public health training programs equip students to address health disparities affecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and other sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations. This study outlines the availability of public health curricula on SGM health topics, and the prevalence of LGBT and SGM-inclusive institutional support services across CEPH-accredited U.S. schools of public health. Content analysis of all course offerings related to gender and sexuality revealed a limited focus on sexual and gender minority health: just 4.7% of courses contained keywords indicating that LGBT or SGM health topics were covered. Similar analysis of institutional support services available at U.S. schools of public health found that only 25% of schools had LGBT student organizations, and just 19% had an office of diversity that specifically advertised LGBT or SGM-inclusive programming or services on the institution's Web site. Finally, only two of 52 schools offered an educational certificate centered on LGBT health. These findings illustrate a significant need for enhanced curricular content and institutional support services that equip public health students to address SGM health disparities. Improvement in this area may encourage future health care professionals to work to reduce these disparities, to improve SGM persons' experiences in health care settings, and to generate further research in this area.

The effect of healthcare provider support and discrimination on LGBT patients’ trust and adherence

“…(9) Despite this, LGBT health and cultural competency is not widely included as part of medical education courses. (10) The ndings also draw attention to the lasting e ect that the experience someone has the rst time that they come out to a healthcare professional can have.…”

Sexual and gender minorities educational content within obstetric anesthesia fellowship programs: a survey

“…5 Sexual and gender minorities (SGM) represent a wide variety of marginalized patient populations. [7][8][9] The term SGM encompasses the two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, non-binary, and asexual communities. A brief list of relevant terms and their definitions can be found in Table 1.…”

“…Few studies have assessed the presence of SGM education within medical and healthcare provider curricula, so no validated surveys are available. 8,9,[20][21][22][23][24][25] Components of the literature, specifically an article by Burns et al, 38 aided the design and creation of a 32-item questionnaire (eAppendix, available as Electronic Supplementary Material), composed of both open and closed questions. Using an iterative process, a total of 12 individuals consisting of healthcare providers and SGM-identified people from within our local network of colleagues, researchers, and community members provided feedback to develop and refine the survey instrument.…”

Training Needs Measure for Health Care of the LGBT+ Public

“…Therefore, curricula should include the mastery of clinical skills, knowledge, and attitudes that result in the reduction of the health care gap for the LGBT+ public, since there are indications of failures in the education of doctors, nurses and other health professionals who should equip them to promote the health care of these individuals (Dubin et al, 2018;Talan, Drake, Glick, Claiborn, & Seal, 2017).…”