Promoting an Awareness of Family Health History and Future Health in LGBT Families
LGBT families are created in many unique ways. Our identified families share history, traditions and values and common medical backgrounds. This website was created to help LGBT families to understand how health, family history, health beliefs, healthy living and genetic background are an important part of future health.
The LGBT Healthy Families Initiative Has Tools and Information to Help You on the Journey to Future Health
Health care professionals have known for a long time that common diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes can run in families. New studies show that even families who are not biologically related often share health concerns that stem from behavior and lifestyle choices. Your personal health is influences by your family health history.Do you ever wonder:
- How will my grandmother's health conditions affect my health?
- Does diabetes or heart disease run in my family?
- How will our sperm donor's medical history affect our child?
- How do my partner's health beliefs affect our family's health?
If you have, then you are in the right place!
Make a Difference in the Fight Against Cancer
Gay & Lesbian Medical Association and National Coalition for LGBT Health Applaud Institute of Medicine Study on LGBT Health
The Institute of Medicine has recently released its long-awaited report, The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding.
"At a time when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals—often referred to under the umbrella acronym LGBT—are becoming more visible in society and more socially acknowledged, clinicians and researchers are faced with incomplete information about their health status. While LGBT populations often are combined…..read more
Family Health History at your Family Reunion
The more we know about health and medicine, the more it seems we need to know. Learning about your family's past can be good for your health, so you may want to incorporate family health history activities into your family reunion this summer!
To interest members in their health and family health history, offer a short workshop about family health. Family photos and ancedotes combined with information about illness and wellness within your family will educate members about taking charge of their own health. Together you can diagram your family history and trace health issues through several generations.
Knowing your family health history and journaling medical information about yourself and close blood relatives -can be valuable in many ways. Such history can help identify your own risk factors for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and other health problems.
Make a Family Health History a discussion at your family reunions for years to come!
Healthy Communities Require Healthy Individuals.
It is important to see a healthcare provider that you can trust and to get and stay healthy.
It can be hard to talk about our intimate life with anyone. To make sure we stay healthy, we need to help our health care providers help us by talking openly and honestly about our lives and who we are. Coming out is crucial to helping our health care providers help keep us healthy. We need to come out to our providers about our sexual orientation or gender identity. We need to let them know when we are fighting depression, challenging substance use, and trying to manage our sexual health.
Knowledge is powerful tool in keeping us healthy. Below are six important topics that we all need to talk about with our health care providers.
Six important topics we all should talk about with our health care providers:
- Mental Health (including depression and anxiety screening)
- Sexual Health (including STD and HIV screening)
- Substance Use (including tobacco and alcohol)
- Heart Health
- Fitness (including diet and exercise)
- Domestic Violence and Safety
Adapted from the National Coalition for LGBT Health 2008 Health Awareness Week
Healthy People 2010
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) health is emerging as a national health concern because of a growing body of evidence of health disparities experienced by LGBT people. Some agencies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are broadening their focus on populations who experience health disparities to include those defined by sexual orientation and gender identity. For the first time, the ten-year federal plan for improving the nation's health, called Healthy People 2010 (HP2010), includes sexual orientation in 29 health objectives. Concerned with the lack of knowledge about LGBT health among the general population of health care planners and providers, HRSA (Health Resources and Services Administration) awarded the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA) a contract to gather experts from across the country to write a HP 2010 companion document on LGBT health.
Visit The National Coalition for LGBT Health: http://lgbthealth.webolutionary.com/
Download PDF of Healthy People 2010:
http://healthypeople.gov/2020/topicsobjectives2020/
overview.aspx?topicid=25
Same-Sex Marriage and Health
"A large body of scientific research indicates that the denial of marriage rights to gay men and lesbians can negatively impact their health and well being and that of their children."
View the complete study
- GLMA Marriage Initiative
The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA)