During National LGBTQ Pride Month, health-care advocates also are stressing the importance of prevention when it comes to addressing the health needs of the community.
“For those that are LGBTQ, we suffer from discrimination and stigma, but also lack of access to quality, affordable health care. To take pride in your health means to be aware of not just of the freedoms that we’ve fought for all these years but also total health and wellness,” said Brent Pendleton, director of prevention at Equitas Health, an institute for health equity.
Experts say, while 3.4 percent of Ohioans identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, the number actually is much higher.
Pride Month stems from the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York, when activists protested a police raid at a gay club.
Equitas Health is among the organizations offering health events for Pride Month, including free HIV and STD testing.
Sometimes members of the LGBTQ community don’t seek out health care because of past negative experiences, but he encourages them to take pride in their health and seek preventive care, said Pendleton.
“It’s still confidential. Your privacy is still protected, however, to make it normal to where accessing health care and caring about your community as a whole is normalized,” he said.
Pendleton says the LGBTQ community faces a variety of health disparities because of social discrimination and a lack of culturally competent care, including difficulty accessing care and unmet health needs.
He adds LGBTQ individuals also have higher rates of mental and behavioral health problems and are more prone to smoking and alcohol and drug use.