Grant: Foundation Grant

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Two Spirit and queer (LGBTQ) adolescents face persistent health gaps compared to their straight and cisgender peers in Canada and globally. Is it getting better? Our Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre at UBC has developed leading evidence to answer this question: some health gaps are narrowing, but only for some LGBTQ youth (mostly gay boys) and these trends are not yet documented for rural or ethnoculturally diverse LGBTQ youth. Likewise, families are important sources of support for adolescents, but trends show parental support for LGBTQ youth is not improving. Interventions are needed to help all families better support their LGBTQ youth, and to reach youth and families in rural areas. Our Vision: to reduce stigma, foster resilience, and improve health equity for LGBTQ youth in Canada and throughout the world. Our 7-year program of research has 4 primary aims: 1) to track trends in health and health disparities for LGBTQ youth from diverse ethnocultural groups in Canada, Europe, and New Zealand; 2) to identify how families reject or support LGBTQ youth in different cultural groups in these same regions, and examine the link between family support and LGBTQ youth health; 3) develop and test new culturally-relevant on-line and smartphone-based interventions to build parental support and lower family rejection of LGBTQ youth; and 4) develop & test similar technology-based health promotion interventions for diverse and rural LGBTQ youth. Our participatory mixed-methods approaches will use population-based surveys, on-line focus groups, longitudinal research methods, and pilot tests of on-line and text message interventions. With our team of experts from Canada, the USA, New Zealand, and Europe, we will identify culturally-specific knowledge to improve clinical care of LGBTQ youth and families, and create new, culturally relevant family and youth interventions, to narrow the health gaps for LGBTQ youth.