Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and TransgenderedHealth Science Librarians
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered
Sponsored by Cancer Libraries Section; co-sponsored by Relevant Issues Section, Research Section, and LGBT SIG.
Date: Monday, May 24
Time: 3:30-5 p.m.
Location: Military
Health sciences librarians play a key role in helping patients experience a dignified, comfortable, and peaceful death. From advance directives to grief and bereavement, from hospice care to pain management, patients and care givers have significant and varied information needs. Librarians improve the quality of compassionate care for people who are dying by providing health, legal, and ethical information. How can librarians best assist those making critical decisions regarding end-of-life health care?
Sponsored by Public Health/Health Administration Section; co-sponsored by LGBT SIG.
Date: Tuesday, May 25
Time: 2:30-4 p.m.
Location: Monroe West
Significant initiatives have been undertaken to support the global public health infrastructure to more effectively meet the challenges to the public's health at the community, state, and national level and to reduce disparities in health. National health initiatives, such as Healthy People (HP) and the Turning Point projects, provide opportunities for libraries to act as partners in health promotion and disease prevention efforts. Anthony J. Silvestre, associate professor, Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, will offer a perspective on the development of HP 2010 objectives. Contributed papers will be presented by information professionals playing a role in local, state, national, or international health initiatives.
SIG Presentation: "The Power to Influence Health Policy" by Anthony
J. Silvestre, Ph.D., LSW
Time: 3:15 p.m.
Librarians and professional library associations have had major impacts on the health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people and on the development of health policies. In some cases, decisions by individual librarians have made a substantial difference in the lives of LGBT people. Additionally, the formal support of the profession of the early LGBT movement provided credibility and resources when they were most difficult to get.
This support continues in the face of ongoing political pressure. The recent congressional investigation of NIH's support of HIV and LGBT health research is the most recent and most publicized example of inappropriate political interference into the research process. The resulting dearth of LGBT research has negatively affected efforts to affect LGBT health policies and programs. The barriers to LGBT research arise from the lack of federal funding, inadequate resources to deal with all health disparities, the relative silence of our associations and schools, and lack of political will.
The development of "Healthy People 2010" and the "Healthy People 2010 Companion Document for Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Health" illustrates the impact of politics on LGBT health policies. As such it sheds light on the practical steps that can be taken to improve health policy in the future. Librarians and their colleagues in the wider research community have the power to make a difference in health policy.
About the Speaker:
Anthony J. Silvestre, Ph.D., LSW, is an Associate Professor in the Department
of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the Graduate School of Public Health
at the University of Pittsburgh. He has worked to lessen health disparities
based on sexual orientation and gender identity since the early 1970s when he
served as Chairperson of the Pennsylvania Governor's Council for Sexual Minorities,
the first governmental body ever formed to end discrimination based on sexual
orientation. More recently, he has served as a past president of the Caucus
of LGBT Public Health Workers in relations with the American Public Health Association.
He also served as an editor and co-author of the "Healthy People 2010 Companion
Document for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health."
Tony is a longtime gay rights activist who has also been a champion of and partner to the library community for many years (as well as a heavy user of the services provided by the Health Sciences Library System at the University of Pittsburgh). He remembers using the ALA equal rights resolution from 1971 and an accompanying bibliography in his lobbying and education efforts because ALA was the first professional association to pass such a resolution affirming that equal rights should be extended people of all sexual orientations. That one-page bibliography used to be one of the only ways LGBT information was disseminated when there was no Internet and few books and articles in the libraries on this topic.
His appreciation for the role of information/informatics in public health was proven locally last year when he helped get a Public Health Informatics course into the MPH curriculum at the University of Pittsburgh. He serves as the principal faculty member and co-teaches the course with faculty librarians, including SIG program coordinator Ammon Ripple.
Tony has a lot of experience working with policymakers and plenty of stories to tell and strategies to share that may help the library community make a difference in health policy regarding LGBT health research and other health policy issues.
For more biographical information and a photo, go to http://www.idm.pitt.edu/faculty/silvestre.html.
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