Judy Bradford, PhD

Ken Mayer, MD

A study published in the American Journal of Public Health just a few weeks ago and conducted by researchers working under the umbrella of The Fenway Institute’s Center for Population Research in LGBT Health showed that gay men were able to lead healthier, less stress-filled lives when states offer legal protections to same-sex couples. 

The study showed that in the 12 months following the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, gay and bisexual men had a significant decrease in medical care visits, mental health care visits, and mental health care costs, compared with the 12 months before the law changed.  This amounted to a 13-percent reduction in health care visits and a 14-percent reduction in health care costs.  These health effects were similar for partnered and single gay men.  According to Mark L. Hatzenbuehler, PhD, lead author of the study, “These findings suggest that marriage equality may produce broad public health benefits by reducing the occurrence of stress-related health conditions in gay and bisexual men."

This link between equality for the LGBT community and the overall health and well-being of LGBT individuals is something that has long been suspected but that we are now able to demonstrate thanks to research like this being conducted right here at Fenway.  Research findings like this are vital tools that allow us to make a stronger case for the importance of equality in all areas of life for all members of our community.   Read more.

Ken Mayer, MD

NEXT PrEP:  The next chapter in PrEP

Oral PrEP is a novel HIV prevention approach in which at risk HIV-uninfected individuals take antiretroviral medication to prevent them from acquiring HIV. Globally, there have been multiple  PrEP  studies either recently completed or currently underway in 13 countries involving over 20,000 individuals with diverse risk behaviors (HIV serodiscordant couples, at risk heterosexual persons in high HIV prevalence areas, intravenous drug users (IDUs) and men who have sex with men (MSM). All of these clinical trials have evaluated PrEP using either tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) or the fixed-dose combinations of TDF/emtricitabine (FTC).  Read more.

Harvey Makadon, MD

Health care and human rights for LGBT people: A critical focus for our work

Harvey Makadon, MD, the director of Fenway’s Professional Education and Training Program, recently wrote a piece for our Fenway Focus blog about the strong link between the concepts of health and human rights and how stigma and discrimination are deeply connected to limitations and barriers to sensitive, humane care.  Read Harvey’s blog post here.

Jon Vincent

New directions for Living Well

For a quarter of a century, Fenway has hosted a continuum of workshops and community events called the Living Well Series.  Originally, Living Well was designed to help HIV positive individuals live healthier lives through things like nutrition, meditation, relaxation skills, cognitive behavioral therapy, exercise, and other holistic approaches to health maintenance.  Although Living Well and Boundless were always transgender friendly, transgender-specific programming was lagging behind.  Six years ago, the charters of both series were adjusted to address that.  Read more.

Judy Bradford, PhD

Pop Center joins with community partners to launch a new study of well-being among LGBT and heterosexual older adults

In November, the Center for Population Research in LGBT Health and the Massachusetts LGBT Aging Needs Assessment Coalition (M’LANA) launched a new study of well-being among LGBT and heterosexual older adults.  The study, called “Care and Service Needs of Older Adults at Congregate Meal Sites” will survey older adults who attend “community cafes” in the greater Boston area.  The study will help us to better understand the challenges that people face in living healthy, happy, and active lives in older age, along with the resources and strengths that people bring to meeting these challenges.  Read more.

Gustavo Torrez

The Network for LGBT Health Equity launches its strategic plan

A year ago today the Network announced our Steering Committee, in acknowledgment of our increased wellness work, voted to change the name of the Network from The Network to LGBT Tobacco Control to The Network for LGBT Health Equity. Changing the name of The Network was something that initiated significant, profound discussions at Steering Committee meetings, and our Steering Committee realized that they needed more data to better inform the deliberations and be able to make the best recommendation on the name issue.  One of the action items that emerged was to conduct a survey of The Network’s membership to get a better sense of what LGBT health areas folks are working on, besides tobacco.  Read more.

Sean Cahill, PhD

The Fenway Institute Policy Focus briefs highlight importance of gathering LGBT data in clinical settings

This month, The Fenway Institute issues two Policy Focus briefs to highlight the importance of gathering sexual orientation and gender identity data in clinical settings. Why gather data on sexual orientation and gender identity in clinical settings explains how gathering such data will help us understand LGBT health disparities and How to gather data on sexual orientation and gender identity in clinical settings provides guidance on how to ask questions on patient registration forms and how clinicians can ask questions during medical visits. Read more.