CO-CHAIRS:
The LGBTQIA+ Special Interest Group was founded in response to an urgent need to globally improve our understanding of what works, for whom, where and when in relation to suicide prevention specifically for LGBTQIA+ individuals.
The LGBTQIA+ SIG aims to use a multidisciplinary collaborative approach to promote greater awareness of the need for person- and identity-centred suicide prevention initiatives. The purpose of the LGBTQIA+ Special Interest Group is to pursue a collective and shared interest in suicide prevention for LGBTQIA+ people by promoting and advocating for existing and emerging research in this topic area. Through its membership, the LGBTQIA+ SIG will look for opportunities to contribute to innovative and best practice exemplars of suicide research and advocacy efforts that contribute to knowledge translation improving understanding, practice and public policy.
Specifically, the SIG will:
- Conduct ongoing recruitment to ensure an active and sustained interdisciplinary global membership.
- Conduct regular meeting of the membership to discuss current and future activities.
- Collect and synthesise knowledge, evidence and information and make this available in accessible formats.
- Represent an expert group for individuals and organisations seeking information and/or advice.
- Promote knowledge sharing and promotion on the topic (via conferences, seminars, workshops, publications, social media presence etc).
- Raise awareness about, and advocate for the topic to academic and professional audiences.
- Undertake primary and secondary research as capacity allows.
- Develop IASP policy position papers.
- Share evidence-informed practice (especially preventative).
- Facilitate collaboration between research, policy and practice relating to the topic.
- Develop research methodologies to evaluate different types of interventions relating to the topic.
- Facilitate collaborative grant applications to progress international comparative research, prevention and policy.
- Form Task Forces on an as-needed basis to help us undertake time-limited and specific tasks.
Upcoming Events:
- Project SPIRiT: Real-Time Suicide Prediction in LGBTQ+ Youth – Development, Feasibility, Key Lessons, and Implications
- Thursday 3 October 2024
- 19:00-20:00 AEST
In this webinar, Dr Kirsty Clark will discuss Project SPIRiT (Suicide Prediction in Real-Time), a smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study focused on LGBTQ+ youth aged 13-24 in the southeastern United States. In Project SPIRiT, participants completed three surveys per day for 28 consecutive days to capture real-time data on minority stress exposure and suicidal ideation intensity. Dr Clark will detail the multi-phase development of Project SPIRiT, which incorporated feedback from LGBTQ+ youth, their parents, and experts. She will also present feasibility and acceptability data from 50 LGBTQ+ youth participants and share key lessons learned for researchers planning future EMA studies on suicidality among LGBTQ+ youth.
Dr Kirsty A Clark (she/her) is trained as a social and psychiatric epidemiologist. She serves as an Assistant Professor of Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr Clark also serves as Associate Director of the Vanderbilt LGBTQ+ Policy Lab and as Director of the Clark Lab. Dr Clark’s program of research focuses on studying biopsychosocial factors that potentiate or mitigate suicide risk among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) populations. She has published more than 65 peer-reviewed papers in high-impact journals. Dr Clark is currently the PI of a study funded by the US National Institute of Mental Health which uses smartphone-based assessment methods to capture real-time associations between stigma-related stress exposure and suicidal ideation intensity among LGBTQ+ youth in the US Southeast.
WEBINARS:
- Establishing LGBTQIA+ Health and Mental Health Care in Mongolia
- Monday 29 April 2024
- 19:00-20:00 AEST
- [email protected]
In this webinar, Jack (Dorjjantsan) Ganbaatar discussed his decade-long experience of establishing health and mental health care for LGBTQI+ people in Mongolia. He touched on lessons he has learned and how these might be useful to those working in LGBTQI+ mental health care in other countries. Jack also briefly touched on how this experience has led him to undertake a PhD in Public Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia, with a thesis focusing on healthcare access among the LGBTQI+ community in Mongolia.
Jack studied medicine at the National Medical University of Mongolia and completed his Master’s degree in Public Health at the University of Melbourne in 2021. For the past decade, he has worked at the LGBT Centre (Mongolia), overseeing the Health Program. Jack has played a key role in identifying major healthcare system gaps and developing opportunities to improve access to healthcare for LGBTQI+ Mongolians. The Health Program works on mainstreaming cultural and technical competence issues in both healthcare service provision and tertiary education curriculum, as well as providing information and referrals to LGBTQI+ community members. Mental health access for the LGBTQI+ community was one focus of Jack’s work in Mongolia. He has been active in negotiating with the National Mental Health Institute and Ministry of Health regarding LGBTQI+ inclusion and sensitivity. Jack is now undertaking a PhD in Public Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia. For any questions, contact Jack here.
2024 activities:
In line with the objectives of the SIG, in 2024 we have:
- Established a new leadership comprising three co-chairs who share collaborative leadership of the Group.
- Established a meeting schedule, with members meeting quarterly to discuss current and future activities of the SIG.
- Commenced a systematic review on protective factors against suicide for LGBTQIA+ people. We aim to submit the review for publication in 2025.
- The SIG has instituted an LGBTQIA+ suicide prevention seminar series. Seminars are open to the public and will be held quarterly for the remainder of 2024. Details are published on this webpage for each seminar.
- Advocated for research focusing on suicide prevention for LGBTQIA+ people to be better represented in keynote addresses at international suicide prevention conferences.
Resources
LGBTQA+ Mental Health
- ILGA-Europe: Health (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association).
- Writing Themselves In 4: The health and wellbeing of LGBTQA+ young people in Australia, 2020-2021.
- Rainbow Realities: In-depth analyses of large-scale LGBTQA+ health and wellbeing data in Australia, 2024.
- Suicide Prevention Toolkit: Surviving and thriving as an LGBTQ+ person.
- The Trevor Project. 2024 US National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People.
- World Health Organisation. Improving the health and well-being of LGBTQI+ people.
How to be an ally
If you would like to join this SIG, please fill in the contact form below:
