“We Can Be Our Best Alliance”: Resilient Health Information Practices of LGBTQIA+ Individuals as a Buffering Response to Minority Stress

Advancing information practices theoretical discourses centered on marginality, community, and embodiment: Learning from the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities

“…• Semi-structured interviews and information world mapping with 30 LGBTQIA+ community leaders from January-August 2019. We analyzed interviews using an open qualitative coding process and information world mapping using situational analysis (Kitzie et al, 2020a(Kitzie et al, , 2021Lookingbill et al, 2021;Vera et al, 2020; see also Greyson et al, 2017 for an overview of information world mapping). • A half-day community forum between 16 LGBTQIA+ leaders who participated in mapping and interviews and 14 library staff from across a Southeastern state in November 2019.…”

“…[them] otherwise" due to discrimination across Ray's intersecting identities). Other examples of protective information practices include creating resource lists and health campaigns for community members focused on anticipated health challenges, mediating between community members and health information, such as referring members to a gender-affirming therapist to protect them from transphobia, and avoiding information sources like doctors and therapists known for having a history of harming LGBTQIA+ people to prevent oneself from experiencing the same harms (Kitzie et al, 2020;Lookingbill et al, 2021). Much like risks and barriers do not represent a binary but rather a spectrum, so do defensive and protective practices, and practices can have both defensive and protective elements.…”

Co-creation of a training for community health workers to enhance skills in serving LGBTQIA+ communities

“…From May-July 2021, the team began planning the curricular outline by identifying five main areas of focus, which ultimately became the course modules: (1) terminology and history of LGBTQIA+ identities (5 h); (2) intersectionality and LGBTQIA+ identities (10 h); (3) LGBTQIA+ health issues (10.5 h); (4) resources and strategies for LGBTQIA+ health promotion (2.5 h); (5) advocacy and outreach to LGBTQIA+ people and communities (2 h). The team identified these areas based on several factors, including CCHA's observations of prior CHW training participants' reception of and feedback about the 2.5 content hours focused on LGBTQIA+ topics; the team's previous research concerning health issues faced by LGBTQIA+ populations and their health information work (9,(35)(36)(37); feedback from an eight-person advisory board comprised of LGBTQIA+ community leaders, CHWs, and researchers in Public Health and Information Science fields.…”