LBTQ Health Equity Initiative
California Department of Public Health
The LBTQ Health Equity Initiative of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) prioritizes Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and other sexual or gender expansive folx (LBTQ), with an emphasis on aiding youth, elders, and BIPOC in the community. Our initiative will address health disparities experienced by 2.5 million Californians state-wide who identify as LBTQ.
Our Goals
The LBTQ Health Equity Initiative will tackle (well-documented yet largely neglected) health inequities that result from a range of challenges, including deeply rooted and systemic anti-blackness, anti-LBTQ bias, and an alarming lack of culturally tailored services for LBTQ women, non-binary & binary transgender individuals. Funding for the LBTQ Health Equity Initiative was appropriated by the legislature in 2019 after community stakeholders presented compelling evidence of these inequities.
UC Santa Barbara Evaluation Team
The UCSB Evaluation Team is partnering with CDPH to provide large-scale evaluation strategy and technical assistance to community organizations across California that are receiving funds to address health disparities among LBTQ women, non-binary and binary transgender people. Our team bases its evaluation process in intersectional, health-equitable, and empowerment evaluation theories. Our goal is to emphasize the autonomy of our community while providing the assistance necessary to build data-driven evaluation skills.
Our goal is to highlight and support the already well-developed work that our community has been engaged in across generations of LBTQ+ people.
Core Team
Principal Investigator
Alison Cerezo, Ph.D.
Alison Cerezo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology at UC Santa Barbara. Dr. Cerezo’s primary line of research centers on reducing social and health disparities for Latinx and African American sexual and gender diverse communities. Dr. Cerezo uses qualitative, quantitative and mixed methodologies and has carried out research on sexual and gender diverse communities in the U.S. and Mexico.
Technical Research Coordinator
París DaSilva
París, a transgender Latina, received her dual BS/BA in Molecular Biology and Spanish from California State University, Monterey Bay, where she studied the cell cycle and growth control pathways of S. cerevisiae and sociolinguistic barriers to healthcare for monolingual Spanish speakers. She recently obtained her MPH in Epidemiology from San Diego State University, where she also worked as an investigator on healthcare barriers and disparities for the LGBTQ+ community.
Grant Administrator
Haleigh Armstrong
Haleigh graduated with a BS in Psychology and Brain Sciences, and minors in Applied Psychology and LGBTQ Studies, from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Haleigh's research interests are centered around the gender affirming care and mental health implications for transgender populations. Haleigh wishes to pursue her PhD in Clinical and Counseling Psychology to continue such research.
Resources
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Our evaluation manual, Bridging the Gap: Using Data to Address Health Equity Among LBTQ Californians, offers information about this initiative, guidance on how to collect and analyze your data, and other useful information on research methods.
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We created a brief lecture series as a companion to the evaluation manual. These videos further explore logic models, qualitative data analysis, qualitative data collection, and ethics.
Alisoncerezo.wixsite.com is an independently operated website dedicated to helping communicate information about the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) LBTQ Health Equity Initiative. Alisoncerezo.wixsite.com is not an official government website.