This webinar, organized by the EUPHA Sexual and Gender Minority Health Section focuses on four research presentations that highlight several community-based techniques and approaches to advance LGBTQ+ health equity across the globe. Over the span of 90 minutes, these presentations will outline tools, interventions, frameworks, and approaches that are rooted in social justice and direct community engagement, followed by a moderated panel discussion and audience forum.

Chair

Dr. Arjan van der Star, Section President

Presentation 1 – The PRIDE Scale: A Validated Multinational Tool to Assess Healthcare Providers’ LGBTQI+ Health Competence

Bidell, M.P., Sherriff, N.S., Zumwalt, A.C., Zeeman, L., Coleman, S.M., Cesare, N., Streed, C., Amaddeo, F., Huber, J., Pratt-Chapman, M., Nowaskie, D.Z., Mirandola, M

Speaker: Ann C. Zumwalt

The multinational Professional Readiness in Diversity and Equity (PRIDE) Scale is a new validated instrument to assess healthcare professionals and the current health care climate for LGBTQI+ people. The scale was developed from an international sample (Italy, UK, USA) and has four subscales [Beliefs & Convictions (n=8); Awareness (n=6); Clinical Preparedness (n=5;) Work Climate (n=6)] which correlate strongly with relevant external scales. This tool provides an essential modernized tool for ongoing efforts to improve the health and well-being of LGBTQI+ communities.

Presentation 2 – Community-based interventions in LGBTQI+ mental health in France: findings from a qualitative study

Sasha Gehin, Rose Babin Mackenzie, Leceo Havard, Laszlo Blanquart, Bruno Brive, Noémie Pillas, Giovanna Rincon, Gabriel Girard

Speaker: Sasha Gehin

The ICOMED qualitative study evaluated the strategies LGBTI+ peer navigators in France used to manage emotional strain, activist burnout, and field practice challenges. The study identified both individual actions, such as personal therapy, and collective approaches, including team supervision and shared case management, as essential for sustaining emotional boundaries and personal agency. These findings lay the groundwork for a broader national effort to support LGBTI+ caregivers through cross-organizational collaboration and a planned mental health ambassador network.

Presentation 3 – Ecologies of inclusion: approaches towards social justice

Emmy Kageha Igonya, Winstoun C. Muga, Mathew Thomann, Kristefer Stojanovski

Speaker: Emmy Kageha Igonya

This presentation explores three undocumented, LGBTQ+-led innovations advancing social justice: health service integration in Kisumu, a health facility cleanup initiative in Nairobi, and the “Looking In, Looking Out” (LILO) training intervention in Mombasa. The results highlight deep-seated stigma and hostility persist; service providers participating in LILO sessions often face courtesy stigma, moral scrutiny, and professional backlash, which deters initial engagement and stifles the intervention’s broader multiplier effect. While innovative interventions like LILO successfully improve provider attitudes, persistent conscious and unconscious fears continue to impede service access.

Presentation 4 – Dialogue-based public health governance to address LGBTQ+ youth disengagement from services: a regional municipality framework in Norway

Speaker: Jon Martin Larsen

Young people who belong to a gender and sexuality minority face the highest cumulative bullying and harassment of any group in a new regional survey in Norway, yet they are also the group least likely to ever approach the municipal services meant to help them, challenging a popular narrative of Norwegian and Nordic exceptionalism in equal services and inclusion of minorities. The disengagement isn’t lack of need or disinterest: the research shows it is a rational, protective response to institutional unpredictability, where youth cannot foresee whether an adult will understand them, dismiss them, or expose them. The cost of that silence follows them through life — the same pattern of withdrawal and lack of openness reappears among adult and elderly LGBTQ+ residents, who report saving money to avoid municipal services and elder care altogether rather than risk an unsafe encounter.