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AHP News

May 25, 2023
The UCSF Alliance Health Project (AHP) is pleased to present our 2021/2022 Annual Report, “AHP Now.”
May 5, 2023
Interview with UCSF Associate Professor Annesa Flentje, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the University of California, San Francisco in the School of Nursing, Community Health Systems, School of Medicine, and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Flentje is also the Associate Director and UCSF Site Director of The PRIDE Study and Associate Professor of Research at Alliance Health Project. The focus of the Pride Study is to determine how being LGBTQ+ is related to physical, mental, and social health. Similarly, in a study of sexual minority men living with HIV, her team provided a cognitive behavioral intervention to reduce the impact of minority stress such as discrimination. By collecting blood samples, Flentje found there were biological changes in gene expression related to immune function. This study suggests that interventions to address minority stress due to factors such as sexual orientation, gender expression, HIV status, race or ethnicity, homelessness, or socioeconomic status, may be applied to improve immune function and health outcomes. With The Pride Study, Flentje has also helped build an infrastructure to study LGBTQ+ health over time.