The Importance Of Cultural Competency And LGBT Health

Health disparities in the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender community that lack fair treatment. This population deals with many adversities due to their sexual orientation and gender identity. LGBT’s community consists of a diverse population of people who come from all walks of life ((Howard, 2016). Many LBGT’s will delay or not seek health care due to stigma and lack of fair treatment. In other words, they believe that they are discriminated against.

The mental health of individuals in the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community is something that is a serious problem. For most of the history of the United States and many different parts of the world LGBT people faced much persecution and in some cases even death. This constant fear of discovery and the pressure that one feels on oneself when “in the closet” can lead to major mental distress. Research has shown that people who identify as LGBT are twice as likely to develop lifetime mood and anxiety disorders (Bostwick 468). This is extremely noticeable the past couple years in the suicides of bullied teens on the basis of sexual identity and expression. The stigma on simply being perceived as LGBT is strong enough to

Perhaps the most significant contributing cause of the poor quality of healthcare afforded to transgender patients is the fact that the majority of healthcare providers do not know how to treat trans patients. According to a study done by the Royal College of Nursing, it was discovered that “78% [of surveyed nursing staff] had not had training on how to care for transgender people, and only 13% of those surveyed said they had felt prepared to meet the needs of trans patients they had cared for” (Duffy, 2016). Additionally, around four out of five staff had “no training

Department of Health and Human Service (2003), stating that cultural competency is “the ability to provide services to clients that honor different cultural beliefs, interpersonal styles, attitudes and behaviors and the use of multi-cultural staff in the policy development, administration and provision of those services.” According to the National Associations of Social Workers’ (2008) code of ethics, competency is important for understanding clients and their needs. Cultural competence differs from cultural humility in that it solely provides educational information regarding diverse populations in attempts to provide quality services. Culturally humility is a philosophy that includes components of cultural competence, but also involves analyzing ones self-awareness and biases. It includes life long learning surrounding issues of cultural diversity. Cultural humility is what is strived for but for the purpose of this analysis it will focus on cultural competence as a means of educating individuals on LGBT issues in later

The purpose of this paper is to explore various considerations when counseling members of the lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender community (LGBT). When counseling LGBT members, the psychology professional must be aware of various factors that may influence effective treatment. For instance, the historical treatment of the LGBT community by the mental health profession is important to understand in order to make strides at improving institutional attitudes and approaches. Other factors such as community perceptions, interfamily relations and cultural bias are all relevant to successful therapeutic outcomes. This paper aims to discuss these factors in order to present a comprehensive review of the cultural considerations involved with counseling the LGBT community.

Relocating into a senior care facilities can be a frightening experience for the aging population. Getting familiar with new surroundings, new organization structure, and new people that can cause anxiety to rise. For a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer individual, this experience can be traumatic. The fear of harassment, hostility, and neglect by healthcare providers and caretakers can keep LGBTQ people from seeking care until their health begins to critically decline. LGBTQ cultural competency training is highly recommended for healthcare professionals and social service organizations. The greatest barrier that prevents quality health care for LGBTQ people is the lack of competence among the healthcare professionals.

The transgender population often have complicated medical needs and encounter numerous health disparities including discrimination, lack of access to quality health care and social stigma. Some health disparities include various chronic diseases, cancers, as well as mental health issues (Vanderbilt University, 2017). Transgender individuals are at increased risk of HIV infection with their rates being reported “over four times the national average of HIV infection, with higher rates among transgender people of color (Grant, Mottet, Tanis, 2011).” In addition, they usually do not have health insurance (Makadon, 2017) and have a lower probability of preventative cancer screenings in transgender men (AMSA, 2017).

This decision has affected people’s behavior as individuals and public institutions such as family, young, elderly, disabled, LGTB and those with pre-existing conditions. For example, Kates & Ranji (2014) report that health care access and coverage for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGTB) community in the U.S. face opportunities and challenges when getting access to care. The authors report that LGBT individuals experience some discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, due to ongoing discrimination, access to health care have been limited to these people (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2014). LGBT individuals not only face discrimination when trying to receive care, but also face difficulties that limit them such as “barriers in obtaining insurance coverage, gaps in coverage, cost-related hurdles, and poor treatment by health care providers” (Kates & Ranji, 2014).

Many LGBTQI Latinx lack appropriate mental health care due to the many external factors that include structural competency and the social determinants of health and clinical intervention. Structural competency is the medical education of understanding the stigma and inequities among marginalized diverse communities in order to reduce poor health outcomes of the specific community (Metzl, 2014). Specifically, structural competency focuses on the whole population, rather than, the

When the word “culture” comes to mind, many people think different cultures mean that the people within that culture differ physically from other cultures, which is incorrect. A culture is a group of people that share the same way of life and/or belief systems. Their behaviors, values, and symbols are similar, but this does not mean that all individuals within this culture agree on everything. This means that people from all different ethnicities can form a culture and they don’t all have to look alike. This is how nurses must treat the LGBTQ culture, “LGBTQ people represent every form of diversity known within the human experience” ( Eliason, 2010, p.1). The abbreviation, “LGBTQ” may differ from person-to-person but generally it means lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, and questioning. Every name that is symbolized in this abbreviation has a unique meaning. Lesbian means women whose primary sexual attractions are to women, gay means men whose primary sexual

Sexual and social stigmas largely affect the health of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population. While many reports from the Institute of Medicine, Healthy People 2020 and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality recognize a need to improve the quality of health care, barriers still remain. LGBT patients face legal discrimination, especially with insurance, a lack of social programs, and limited access to providers competent in LGBT health care. Although the Affordable Care Act increased access to care for LGBT patients, unless these patients feel understood by providers and develop trust in the system, they are not likely to utilize care. Healthcare providers need to recognize how these vulnerabilities, as well as persistent racism and stigma linked to sexual orientation and gender identity, make the healthcare needs of LGBT patients more challenging than the general population. Healthcare providers also need to promote cultural competence within this population and broaden their clinical lens to include health promotion, in addition to addressing concerns mentioned above within the population. Additionally, medical and nursing schools need to ensure that future providers are adequately educated by including information about this population in the curriculum.

For my SOWK 488 Field placement I have been assigned to complete my BSW internship at Colorado State University’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer/Questioning Two-Spirited, and Ally Resource Center (GLBTQ2ARC or Resource Center). I selected this particular agency for my internship so that I could learn how to apply my social work skills to working with clients who identify as GLBTQA. This paper will discuss the following topics in relation to my work at CSU’s GLBTQ2A Resource Center:

The U.S. is not one of the 61 countries that explicitly prohibits sexual orientation based discrimination in the workplace (Carroll & Mendos, 2017). Unsurprisingly, research indicates that between 15 and 66% of sexual minorities report experiencing this form of discrimination (Lloren & Parini, 2017). In March, 2017, the US Court of Appeals determined that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides protection from discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and several states have enacted laws prohibiting this form of discrimination (Carroll & Mendos, 2017). Findings indicate that the implementation of LGBT-supportive policies in the workplace setting improves the experience and psychological well-being of sexual minorities (Badgett, Durso, Mallory, &

By listening to the stories of people who are a part of a minority based on their ethnicity and sexual preference, I see the necessity of having cultural competency within the healthcare setting and being someone patients feel comfortable around.

Issues with health care provider-patient communication occur with the aging LGBT population in end-of-life care. In order for LGBT patients to receive appropriate treatment and an accurate diagnosis, effective communication between the physician and the patient is very important. When a physician assumes that an LGBT person is heterosexual, patient confidence in care could become compromised, and the LGBT patient may not want further care. Also, same-sex couples fear substandard care due to perceived discrimination if they disclose their sexual orientation to physicians. LGBT patients are also