Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Patricia A. Wren, PhD, MPH and Gilbert C. Gee, PhD. Department of Health Behavior/Health Education, The University of Michigan, 1420 Washington Heights, M5166, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, 734-647-3194, pwren@umich.edu

Public health researchers and practitioners interested in the health of minority, hard-to-reach, and/or underserved populations face considerable methodological and ethical challenges. This presentation explores these challenges with a focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and Asian/Pacific Islander communities. Although these communities have their differences, a major aim will be to examine the commonalities between them. In particular, this presentation will examine five barriers to quality research within these two communities: (1) societal norms and structural oppression (e.g. potential harm from disclosure of sexual orientation or legal status); (2) research biases (e.g. funding priorities; investigator assumptions; reporting); (3) methodological challenges (e.g. small groups; geographic clustering; non-representation in national datasets); (4) conceptual/theoretical limitations (e.g. restricted scope of theory); (5) limited mentoring and developmental opportunities (e.g. paucity of leaders and research precedents). In addition, the presenters will offer examples from the popular press and current public health literature to call attention to the way presentations of new research findings both address and ignore these communities. Lessons learned, practical recommendations, and ethical considerations for working successfully and cooperatively with LGBT and API communities will be discussed.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• Identify the extent to which quality research on LGBT and API communities is hindered by five common barriers.
• Articulate appropriate study design methodologies for securing the participation of members of the target audience.
• Understand the ethical and practical challenges of presenting findings of research on LGBT and API communities.

Keywords: Minority Research, Methodology

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered