LGBT Community Twice as Likely to Smoke Than Heterosexuals!
Reasons include social environment, lack of access to healthcare and stress.

Research has long shown that the effects of smoking and tobacco use doesn't discriminate among its users, but a new health study shows one group may be more susceptible to these risks.

The American Lung Association found that gay, bisexual or transgender men are 2 to 2 and a half times more likely to smoke than heterosexual men.

Lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women are 1 and a half to 2 times more likely to smoke than heterosexual women.

Members of the gay community say while they're surprised by the findings, they can understand why this may be.

"When I think about the social settings that a lot of LGBT people are in, I can kind of relate to it, you know the LGBT community, gay men in particular they often frequent bars and clubs as ways of meeting people that are like them. Of course, that environment exposes them to smoking, often smoke filled places," says Andy Janecek, communications director for The Family Tree.

Besides the social environment, other causes include stress, discrimination, and lack of access to public healthcare.

The American Lung Association is hoping to raise awareness of this issue and address the need for more research in the LGBT community.

"The American Lung Association hopes to be able to encourage local and national health care organizations to include sexual orientation on demographics for any type of public health survey so we can get an increased knowledge of what the LGBT community's tobacco usage is," says Patty Ballantine, with the American Lung Association.

Of the 12 states that participated in this study, only 6 published the results. Florida was not a participant.

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The National LGBT Health Alliance has hailed talks between health experts and educators and national anti-depression group beyondblue a success.

Discussions took place at a roundtable meeting in Melbourne last week, which included representative from the National LGBT Health Alliance, the Victorian Ministerial Advisory Committee for GLBTI Health and Well-Being and ACON.

“Beyondblue made a really firm commitment to quite an extensive package of initiatives and a substantial budget commitment and most importantly a commitment to work in partnership with LGBT organizations,” said Gabi Rosenstreich, executive director of the National LGBT Health Alliance. “I think these are all really fantastic achievements.”

Rosenstreich said the outcomes were made possible because “LGBT organisations spoke with a strong clear voice at that meeting.” She said a substantial financial commitment was made by beyondblue which includes $2 million over the next 12 to 18 months.

Rosenstriech said the next step will involve a meeting between herself and Leonie Young, CEO of beyondblue, early next year.

Young said the event was a much-needed discussion with a positive result for all involved and confirmed five priority areas for action which included developing coordinated campaigns that deal with GLBT depression and discrimination.

Source: http://sxnews.e-p.net.au

There have been a number of comments made recently in the gay press regarding the Victorian AIDS Council / Gay Men’s Health Centre’s Protection campaign. There appear to be a number of conflicting assumptions around the campaign, who it has been targeted to and its effectiveness.

The AIDS Council were asked by the Department of Human Services (now Health Department) to develop a campaign to address issues related to men who engage in unprotected anal intercourse in casual settings, regardless of how old these men might be. The initiative was designed to be a condom reinforcement campaign, and has turned out to be the most effective campaign of its kind that the AIDS Council has implemented in its now 26 year history.

Two separate external evaluations have demonstrated that the campaign had in excess of 70 per cent recognition and, among those people who recognized the campaign, an impressive 90 per cent could recall at least one campaign message and over 50 per cent had become more conscious of using condoms and lube when fucking. An interesting feature of these focus groups was that they were conducted in men between the ages of 18 and 50, with half of them being between the ages of 18 and 29. The evidence of these evaluations put to rest the notion that this campaign has no relevance to younger gay men or that the campaign has been a failure.