AMA Foundation launches new initiative to address LGBTQ health disparities

The American Medical Association Foundation (AMAF) has announced that John D. Evans, telecommunications pioneer, internationally recognized business executive, and philanthropist, will lead a unique and innovative initiative designed to shape the future of LGBTQ health dramatically.

Evans is best known as one of the co-founders of C-SPAN in 1977. He has extensive experience in the HIV/AIDS arena.

The new initiative will create a cadre of LGBTQ health specialists through the AMA Foundation LGBTQ Fellowship Program – a national fellowship program to promote best practices and shared outcomes, while exponentially improving the quality of LGBTQ health care across the nation.

Evans will serve as Chairman of the AMA Foundation Fellowship Commission for LGBTQ Health. The commission will consist of 13-15 LGBTQ thought leaders, educational specialists, physicians and philanthropists who will be appointed by the AMA Foundation Board of Directors.

The AMAF LGBTQ Fellowship Commission will guide the fellowship program's inception to ensure the health needs of the LGBTQ community are optimally considered.

“It is critical we eliminate health care disparities facing the LGBTQ community,” Evans said. “Intersectional issues of discrimination, stigma, access to and quality of care are experienced at a higher rate by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals, and we believe this new initiative will improve the health of LGBTQ people across the country.

“It is a privilege to serve as chairman of this commission. We will create a pipeline of LGBTQ health specialists who can serve the health care needs of the LGBTQ community while growing the pool of competent instructors able to pay it forward by passing on their knowledge to the next generation of LGBTQ providers.” 

A key social determinant of health affecting sexual and gender minorities is a shortage of health care providers who are knowledgeable and culturally competent in LGBTQ health, according to former AMAF president and founding donor of its LGBTQ endowment fund, Joshua M. Cohen, MD, MPH, FAHS.  

“This shortage underscores the immediate need for the AMA Foundation’s LGBTQ Fellowship Program, which will train physicians to become LGBTQ Health Specialists,” said Cohen.

“Moreover, policies that permit the denial of services to LGBTQ people are linked to a 46 percent increase in the proportion of gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults who report mental distress and gay men account for more than two-thirds of all people diagnosed with HIV each year in the United States, despite comprising only two percent of the general population.”

Establishing a national network of LGBTQ health specialist physicians who are formally trained to serve sexual and gender minorities will have a dramatic and positive impact on this community.

The collaboration will provide a transformative opportunity to decrease LGBTQ health disparities, increase cultural and clinical competence amongst physicians in LGBTQ health, build capacity of LGBTQ health services sector to identify better and address the unique health needs of the LGBTQ community, such as the effects of anesthesia on transgender patients undergoing gender-affirming surgery due to medications.

The Gayly. 3/25/2020 @ 3:48 p.m. CST.