Projects

The purpose of this study is to examine the life experiences of asexual individuals, and the role that these life experiences play in asexual identity development. This study builds on previous research with asexual people by being the first to apply a narrative identity framework, which allows for the systematic and quantitative study of the narrative content of asexual identities, the narrative processes in developing an asexual identity, and infer whether the narrative content and processes in asexual identity development is important for their well-being.

This qualitative study explores how women with physical disabilities experience the transition to motherhood with an emphasis on embodiment and care experiences. Participants of this study include 13 women with a range of physical disabilities, including cerebral palsy and spinal cord injury, who live in Ontario and have given birth in the last five years. This study serves as Lesley's doctoral project and she is currently in the process of writing up the findings as part of her dissertation.

People living with serious mental health and/or substance use issues face unique barriers accessing primary care (health care provided by a medical professional that is a patient's first point of entry into the medical system) and often end up as unattached patients. Unattached patients are people who do not have regular access to a primary care provider (i.e., a doctor, nurse, or nurse-practitioner). In this study, we aimed to learn about what happens when people with serious mental health and/or substance use issues go to the doctor or try to go to the doctor and don't get the care they need. We also want to learn about positive primary care experiences.

There is considerable resilience among middle-aged and older (40y/o+) men who have sex with men (MSM) to HIV/AIDS. Despite being part of a population at increased risk for acquiring HIV, many 40y/o+ MSM have remained HIV-negative since the start of the epidemic. Among HIV-positive 40y/o+ MSM, many have exhibited resilience to HIV/AIDS not only by surviving its adverse clinical and social impacts, but also by living active and full lives; fiercely advocating for their rights, and health care and service needs; and staunchly supporting and promoting prevention and intervention programs dedicated to ending HIV/AIDS. Using the principles and tenets of Community-Based Research, and through the analysis of interviews with 40y/o+ MSM in our project, we will examine the resources, strengths, and protective factors they possess that prevent HIV acquisition and transmission in the MSM community, and allow them to thrive in a society that may not be ready to meet the growing health care and service needs of a burgeoning number of 40y/o+ MSM. By doing so, we hope to generate new knowledge and lessons that will inform and influence existing and developing policies and programs dedicated to preventing HIV acquisition and transmission, and meeting the needs of 40y/o+ MSM in the future.

Bisexual men represent a population that is under-represented in research. Studies often pool samples of bisexual men together with those of gay men despite possible differences between the two groups. Indeed, recent studies have shown that bisexual men have different patterns of mental health outcomes and sexual behaviours than gay, lesbian, or heterosexual individuals. The reasons for these differences are not well understood due to the paucity of research on bisexual men. Our team will examine whether popular theories used to explain mental health and sexual risk behaviour in gay men also apply to bisexual men. The theories we will study are: the minority stress theory, the syndemic theory, the theory of planned behavior, and the health belief model.

The goal of the Building Competence, Building Capacity project was to increase the capacity of organizations, as well as multi-disciplinary health and service providers, in providing trauma-informed care to members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Our pilot workshops ran in November 2019 and 2020 with financial support from the Public Health Agency of Canada. The workshop was piloted across Ontario in Toronto, London, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Timmins, Kingston and Windsor, with funding support from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The workshop materials we created are now housed at Rainbow Health Ontario. If you are interested in training on trauma-informed care for 2SLGBTQ+ communities, please visit rainbow health ontario - education & training and look for "2SLGBTQ Trauma Informed Care."

This project is important because there is a great deal of evidence that 2SLGBTQ+ people are more likely to experience violence and/or trauma than straight or cisgender (i.e., non-trans) people.(1) Additionally, 2SLGBTQ+ people face barriers in accessing health and social services as a result of a lack of 2SLGBTQ+ capacity on the part of service providers or the organizations they work within.(2, 3)

Given that many 2SLGBTQ+ people will be in need of support related to experiences of violence/trauma, it is important that organizations and service providers have the ability to skillfully meet the needs of 2SLGBTQ+ people from a trauma-informed lens.

The Centre for Sexual and Gender Minority Health Research is a new knowledge and research hub at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Our Centre is a home for interdisciplinary community-engaged researchers working to address the social determinants of health inequities and improve the health of diverse sexual and gender minority populations locally and globally. We are committed to producing knowledge that will help us promote health equity and meaningfully impact policy, service delivery, and community-based interventions to improve the sexual, physical, and mental health of sexual and gender minorities.

Many LGBTQ2S+ people choose to parent. However, many LGBTQ2S+ people must rely on outside assistance to create their families, including use of assisted human reproduction (AHR) services (see Note 1, Note 2). As a result, LGBTQ2S+ people make up a significant proportion of AHR service users in some parts of Canada (i.e., up to 30%, as reported by one Toronto clinic). Despite this high rate of service utilization, much of the academic literature about LGBTQ2S+ people and AHR services has been comprised of papers debating whether LGBTQ2S+ people should have access to AHR services. These debates stem from widespread societal misconceptions about the presumed inadequacy of LGBTQ2S+ people as parents. In contrast, the impact of these societal misconceptions on provision of AHR services to LGBT people has not been well studied. This is an important gap: in 2008 an expert panel convened by the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services examined the barriers to accessing fertility services in Ontario and specifically recommended the removal of social barriers to AHR for LGBTQ people. Further, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA)includes a non-discrimination clause barring discrimination based on sexual orientation or marital status. In this context, it is critical to determine to what extent AHR services are meeting the family creation needs of Canadian LGBTQ2S+ people.

The Cultural Representations of Gender study (2014-2017) examined representations of femininities and masculinities as they exist within the contemporary psychiatric medical chart. It is an extension of a pilot study conducted in 2009-2011 that explored the interpretative nature of psychiatric chart documentation in relation to constructions of women's mental distress and gender, sexuality, race and class (Daley, Costa & Ross, 2012).

This is a longitudinal, mixed-methods study exploring the experiences, beliefs, behaviors, and places that constitute community participation for LGBTQ2S+ people who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia or psychosis.