Upcoming Events

February 22, North York: Gender Non-conforming Kids: Understanding the needs of kids and families, learning about local programs, resources and research, and talking about how and why it matters in sexual health education and services. Contact jabraha@toronto.ca for more information.
March 20, Ottawa: RHO’s LGBT Health Research Methods Institute
March 19-23, Ottawa: RHO’s 2012 Conference: Supporting LGBT Health Through Every Stage of Life

Welcome to Re:searching for LGBTQ Health!

We are a team of researchers who focus on understanding how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, Two-Spirit, and queer (LGBTQ) people experience physical and mental health, and how they access health services.

Our office is in the Health Systems and Health Equity Research Group of the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health in Toronto, but our work examines LGBTQ lives and experiences all over the province.

Our Research Approach

We use a community based research (CBR) approach, working in partnership with LGBTQ communities to answer questions that are important to them. We are committed to combining our research work with action to create positive change for LGBTQ people.

Goals

To gather research data that helps us to understand the health, and particularly mental health, of LGBTQ people in Ontario.
To describe how experiences such as homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, racism, sexism and ableism impact the health of LGBTQ people in Ontario.
To identify elements that help LGBTQ people in Ontario to access health services, as well as those that prevent them from doing so.
To use what we learn from our research to improve the health, and particularly mental health, of LGBTQ people in Ontario.
To use our research results to improve the health services available to LGBTQ people in Ontario

Values

Social Justice and Anti-oppression

Our research looks at how oppression and privilege impact the communities we work with. We are concerned not only with oppression related to sexual orientation and gender identity, but also race, poverty, disability, and other identities important to LGBTQ people. We are committed to using our results to create positive change for LGBTQ communities.

Working in partnership

We work with the communities that our research is about by forming partnerships with LGBTQ organizations and including LGBTQ people in all stages of our research, as well as on our project teams and advisory committees. In addition to valuing the knowledge of academics and service providers, we also value people’s lived experience such as being LGBTQ, having mental health or addiction issues, being racialized, or being a service user. These different types of knowledge bring important perspective to our work.

We are committed to having a reciprocal relationship with LGBTQ communities. We want our partnerships to benefit everyone, including community members, service providers, and/or academic partners.

Accountability

We are committed to ethical research practices with LGBTQ communities. This includes respecting privacy and confidentiality. We also hold ourselves accountable to the LGBTQ communities more broadly, in terms of doing research that benefits these communities and is consistent with community values.

Holistic health

We recognize that health includes the interrelation of the physical, mental and spiritual. We also acknowledge that there are many different definitions of health relevant to our communities, including culturally specific ways of describing and defining health.