I’ve had the pleasure for the last few days to be brainstorming with a bunch of other LGBT scientists at the very top of a crazy beautiful building at University of Pittsburgh, their Cathedral of Learning. Our host is Dr. Ron Stall and all the other members of the Center for LGBT Health Research at Pitt. I always love hanging out with a herd of pointy-headed folk, and this group is as pointy as it gets. The ideas are challenging, interesting, and always thought provoking. As the headline gave away, we’re brainstorming on what we’re fondly calling: “A love letter to future generations of LGBT health researchers” aka a textbook on how to do LGBT health research. Thanks to Ron & everyone at Pitt for convening us and shepherding this idea, because I feel like the longer we talk about what we really want the next generation to know, the more we realize how much there is to tell them. How to get LGBT measures added to surveillance instruments. How to make sure studies funding for one topic (say, oh HIV) create findings on other health priorities (like oh say, smoking!). How to disseminate research findings not just to elite academic journals, but also to communities. I’m happy to say some of our experiences with tobacco policy change will be highlighted as examples in the book. Actually, we’ve been talking tobacco a lot, no doubt because some of the amazing leaders on tobacco research happen to be sitting right here. So, here’s the pop quiz, look at the pictures to the right, I can identify at least five who are important to tobacco and/or have directly collaborated with the Network. Any idea who some of these stars are? Answers below.
Tobacco hotshots:
Ron Stall has done some of the earlier full probability sampling on gay men and tobacco rates, he likely broke the news about our tobacco disparity, I think his first studies were from the 80s.
Robert Coulter recently volunteered to do something we’d been wanting sorely, an analysis of NIH’s LGBT research (to help us identify gaps). Look for it soon in AJPH!
Jose Bauermeister just presented at NCI on his great lesbian smoking study going on out of UMich, I want to recruit him into doing lots more tobacco research.
Derrick Matthews was one of a few who brought the Network down to U North Carolina Health Disparity Conference a year ago, where we presented our LGBT cultural competency & tobacco training to our largest ever audience of avid listeners.
And this was a trick one, John Blosnich, only shown from the back, is one of our brand new hotshots in tobacco, he’s only a year or so beyond his PhD – but he’s got a cluster of key articles in the peer literature on LGBT tobacco already.
LGBT HealthLink, The Network for Health Equity 