HHS Announces LGBT Health Priorities for the Coming Year

There was a last minute call to listen to HHS’s new priorities for the coming year today. Jumped on and here’s some of the highlights for the coming year (I don’t have the report, so hopefully I got these all down correctly):

• Big push to get the DOMA effects out of all current health regulations
• Big push to get everyone informed about LGBT impacts as the health insurance exchanges roll out, looks like they’ll be doing an info session/conference to help educate LGBT folk in August.
• NIH will be hosting their fist annual research symposium on LGBT health research
• Committing to developing and testing gender identity measures, and offering technical assistance to states who are trying to put them on Behavorial Risk Factor Surveillance Surveys (BRFSS).
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will be developing a resource guide for practitioners serving LGBT youth.
• Administration of Children & Families (ACF) will be funding 2 grantees to do systemic reviews on LGBT issues: one on homeless youth & on another on intimate partner violence.

UPDATE: Thanks to one of our sharp eyed readers for providing us the links to the HHS announcements, so this’ll allow you to see their progress report on last year too.