The City of Chicago, led by the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced the launch of a Community Action Plan outlining strategies to address the specific health needs of Chicago’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community (LGBT). The LGBT Community Action Plan serves as a supplement to Healthy Chicago, the City’s public health agenda. It identifies ways to address high rates of tobacco use, HIV prevention, access to care, obesity, and other concerns within Chicago’s LGBT community.
Highlights of the LGBT Community Action Plan:
- Promote the collection of sexual orientation data in electronic medical records and encourage researchers focused on LGBT health to share findings and develop new LGBT health research.
- Improve the tracking of hate crimes against transgender persons, publicize resources for reporting violence, and conduct outreach on strategies to avoid violence.
- Increase tobacco cessation efforts in the LGBT community to address the high prevalence of smoking, which is at 30 percent, 12 percentage points higher than the 18 percent of the overall population.
- Promote inclusion of same sex couples in programs aimed at healthy pregnancies, childbirth and early childhood health.<
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