National LGBTQIA+ Health Awareness Week

This week marks National LGBTQIA+ Health Awareness Week – an opportunity to elevate awareness and education for access to safe and quality healthcare for all, especially the LGBTQIA+ community. DLH helps reduce barriers to LGBTQIA+ persons by creating and maintaining a safe, inclusive, and welcoming work environment.

We also work to ensure quality, accessible, and non-discriminatory healthcare is available to all. DLH recently participated in research related to improving the user experience for healthcare access and participation for the LGBTQIA+ community. In an article titled “Behavioral Efficacy of a Sexual Health Mobile App for Men Who Have Sex With Men: Randomized Controlled Trial of Mobile Messaging for Men,” co-authored by former DLH researcher Evelyn Olansky, investigated a mobile app combining prevention messages and access to core prevention services for gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM).

GBMSM face the highest burden of HIV in the United States, and there is an insufficient amount of data on effective mobile health HIV prevention and care interventions tailored specifically for GBMSM. Researchers conducted a randomized open-label study with a waitlist control group among GBMSM in three groups (low-risk HIV-negative group, high-risk HIV-negative group, and living-with-HIV group). At the conclusion of the study, access to the Mobile Messaging for Men app was associated with increased HIV testing and PrEP use among high-risk HIV-negative GBMSM in three U.S. cities.

You can read the full article on PubMed.

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