In studying health issues, surprising differences can arise among subsets of the population ― between men and women, among people in differing economic brackets and more. Health issues also emerge along the spectrum of sexual identities.
The creation of an office dedicated specifically to SGM health issues was motivated by a shift in research literature looking at health issues faced by people not then represented in LGBT language, said Dr. Karen L. Parker, director of the Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office at the NIH. With the publication of an Institute of Medicine report in 2011, LGBTI became the preferred appellation for research, which includes individuals who identify as intersex. Since then, research has also come to encompass individuals identifying as gender nonconforming, queer, two spirit and others.
“NIH decided to move toward that sort of language, to become more inclusive, and to also keep up with where we felt the literature was headed,” Parker said.
Universities and research institutions leading the way in SGM health research, Parker said, are Northwestern University in Chicago, along with others such as the University of California, San Francisco and the Fenway Institute.
“There are certainly pockets of very highly qualified researchers who are doing some really groundbreaking work,” Parker said.
Northwestern established the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing in February 2016. Before the creation of the Institute, Northwestern was already doing research in LGBT health issues, and chose the acronym SGM because it more fully encompasses the range of sexual and gender identities, which is still in flux.
