When Out in Public, an LGBT student affinity group at the Yale School of Public Health, formed in the spring of 2013, its members wanted to be more than a social group. They wanted to have an impact.
Co-chaired by students Shae Selix and Hannah Slater, M.P.H. ’14, the group observed that while the school had a strong HIV research focus that includes transmission and social factors among the LGBT community, room remained in the core public health education for greater awareness and representation of LGBT perspectives.
“We routinely study disadvantaged and sensitive subgroups for health factors. We felt that LGBT health could be more integrated in the core curriculum,” said Selix, who is now a second-year student in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences.
After an extensive literature review on topics such as disparities, social determinants, law and policy, sexual and global health, Out in Public compiled over 40 abstracts, datasets and resources into a curriculum resource for faculty that is now publicly available on the YSPH diversity web pages.
After the YSPH education committee endorsed the effort, Out in Public met with a number of department heads. Some of their suggested readings are being incorporated into select classes, including the Healthcare Management Seminar’s syllabus and the Maternal-Child Public Health Nutrition class that Rafael Pérez-Escamilla teaches.
Pérez-Escamilla, professor of chronic disease epidemiology, will also include two articles in an upcoming special issue of the Journal of Human Lactation on breastfeeding equity, which he guest edited. “This outcome was strongly influenced by the students’ thoughtful and compelling research and presentation on the importance of addressing the needs of the LGBT community,” said Pérez-Escamilla.
Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health have long investigated the role of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, aging, socieconomics and geopolitics in health disparities. This project extends an appreciation for diversity into the fabric of the curriculum in a new way.
“Students can make a difference in helping guide and inform our curriculum,” said Melinda Pettigrew, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. “I am thrilled to see our faculty members incorporating student suggestions both in and out of the classroom. We all benefit from this.”
Out in Public in now in the process of expanding the conversation through outreach to LGBT groups at other schools and to other affinity groups at YSPH.
On November 6 the group will host a dinner with the Emerging Majority Students Organization and Students Active for Gender Equality to foster discussion on the intersections of identity and health. “In public health, we often discuss exposure to disease. This dinner will bring us together to discuss how historically oppressed groups and combinations of factors also influence health,” said Selix.
Other contributors to the LGBT curriculum project included 2014 M.P.H. graduates Anna North, Hannah Mogul-Adlin, Bridget Griffith and Adam Eldahan.