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“I feel like I am surviving the health care system”: understanding LGBTQ health in Nova Scotia, Canada

BACKGROUND: Currently, there is a dearth of baseline data on the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) populations in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. Historically, LGBTQ health research has tended to focus on individual-level health risks associated with poor health o...

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Autores principales: Colpitts, Emily, Gahagan, Jacqueline
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5034675/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27658489
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3675-8
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author Colpitts, Emily
Gahagan, Jacqueline
author_facet Colpitts, Emily
Gahagan, Jacqueline
author_sort Colpitts, Emily
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Currently, there is a dearth of baseline data on the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) populations in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. Historically, LGBTQ health research has tended to focus on individual-level health risks associated with poor health outcomes among these populations, which has served to obscure the ways in which they maintain their own health and wellness across the life course. As such, there is an urgent need to shift the focus of LGBTQ health research towards strengths-based perspectives that explore the complex and resilient ways in which LGBTQ populations promote their health. METHODS: This paper discusses the findings of our recent scoping review as well as the qualitative data to emerge from community consultations aimed at developing strengths-based approaches to understanding and advancing LGBTQ pathways to health across Nova Scotia. RESULTS: Our scoping review findings demonstrated the lack of strengths-based research on LGBTQ health in Nova Scotia. Specifically, the studies examined in our scoping review identified a number of health-promoting factors and a wide variety of measurement tools, some of which may prove useful for future strengths-based health research with LGBTQ populations. In addition, our community consultations revealed that many participants had negative experiences with health care systems and services in Nova Scotia. However, participants also shared a number of factors that contribute to LGBTQ health and suggestions for how LGBTQ pathways to health in Nova Scotia can be improved. CONCLUSIONS: There is an urgent need to conduct research on the health needs, lived experiences, and outcomes of LGBTQ populations in Nova Scotia to address gaps in our knowledge of their unique health needs. In moving forward, it is important that future health research take an intersectional, strengths-based perspective in an effort to highlight the factors that promote LGBTQ health and wellness across the life course, while taking into account the social determinants of health.
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spelling pubmed-50346752016-09-29 “I feel like I am surviving the health care system”: understanding LGBTQ health in Nova Scotia, Canada Colpitts, Emily Gahagan, Jacqueline BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Currently, there is a dearth of baseline data on the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) populations in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. Historically, LGBTQ health research has tended to focus on individual-level health risks associated with poor health outcomes among these populations, which has served to obscure the ways in which they maintain their own health and wellness across the life course. As such, there is an urgent need to shift the focus of LGBTQ health research towards strengths-based perspectives that explore the complex and resilient ways in which LGBTQ populations promote their health. METHODS: This paper discusses the findings of our recent scoping review as well as the qualitative data to emerge from community consultations aimed at developing strengths-based approaches to understanding and advancing LGBTQ pathways to health across Nova Scotia. RESULTS: Our scoping review findings demonstrated the lack of strengths-based research on LGBTQ health in Nova Scotia. Specifically, the studies examined in our scoping review identified a number of health-promoting factors and a wide variety of measurement tools, some of which may prove useful for future strengths-based health research with LGBTQ populations. In addition, our community consultations revealed that many participants had negative experiences with health care systems and services in Nova Scotia. However, participants also shared a number of factors that contribute to LGBTQ health and suggestions for how LGBTQ pathways to health in Nova Scotia can be improved. CONCLUSIONS: There is an urgent need to conduct research on the health needs, lived experiences, and outcomes of LGBTQ populations in Nova Scotia to address gaps in our knowledge of their unique health needs. In moving forward, it is important that future health research take an intersectional, strengths-based perspective in an effort to highlight the factors that promote LGBTQ health and wellness across the life course, while taking into account the social determinants of health. BioMed Central 2016-09-22 /pmc/articles/PMC5034675/ /pubmed/27658489 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3675-8 Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Colpitts, Emily
Gahagan, Jacqueline
“I feel like I am surviving the health care system”: understanding LGBTQ health in Nova Scotia, Canada
title “I feel like I am surviving the health care system”: understanding LGBTQ health in Nova Scotia, Canada
title_full “I feel like I am surviving the health care system”: understanding LGBTQ health in Nova Scotia, Canada
title_fullStr “I feel like I am surviving the health care system”: understanding LGBTQ health in Nova Scotia, Canada
title_full_unstemmed “I feel like I am surviving the health care system”: understanding LGBTQ health in Nova Scotia, Canada
title_short “I feel like I am surviving the health care system”: understanding LGBTQ health in Nova Scotia, Canada
title_sort “i feel like i am surviving the health care system”: understanding lgbtq health in nova scotia, canada
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5034675/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27658489
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3675-8
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