LGBTQ+ Research

Discover While Serving

HIV and LGBTQ+ healthcare research leads AHP staff to recognize gaps and develop ideas for filling them. AHP researches new approaches to HIV prevention and LGBTQ+ mental health.

AHP research this year investigated the health of LGBTQ+ communities in partnership with nationwide studies like The PRIDE Study and intensive clinical studies done at AHP investigating new improvements to interventions to reduce LGBTQ+ minority stress impacts.

Publications by AHP Researcher Annesa Flentje:

• Minority Stress, Structural Stigma, and Physical Health Among Sexual and Gender Minority Individuals: Examining the Relative Strength of the Relationships
• Integrating LGBTQ+ health into medical education
• Associations among romantic and sexual partner history and muscle dysmorphia symptoms, disordered eating, and appearance- and performance-enhancing drugs and supplement use among cisgender gay men
• Health Insurance Prevalence Among Gender Minority People: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
• Psychometric validation of the Muscle Dysmorphic Disorder Inventory (MDDI) among U.S. transgender men

The Sexual and Gender Minority Health Equity Lab

The Sexual and Gender Minority Health Equity (SGMHE) Lab, led by Annesa Flentje, PhD, seeks to better understand and improve health disparities among LGBTQ+ people. We study how stressors related to stigma and discrimination – collectively termed minority stress – impact mental and physical health for sexual and gender minority people. Bridging the fields of clinical psychology, molecular biology, epidemiology, and public health, our team conducts translational research investigating the molecular impacts of minority stress and develops new, evidence-based, LGBTQ-affirming mental health interventions to improve outcomes like substance use, mood, and anxiety disorders.

Learn more about The Sexual and Gender Minority Health Equity Lab’s research