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ACEWH's Newest Researchers Win IWK Poster Award

Posted by Trudi Smith on December 5, 2012 in Awards, Research, FHP Achievements

Ellen Taylor and Andrew Jantzen with their winning poster.

Congratulations to Ellen Taylor and Andrew Jantzen, research assistants at the Atlantic Centre of Excellence for Women's Health (ACEWH), who earned top marks at the IWK Interdisciplinary Research Conference held on November 8, 2012 for their poster presentation LGBTQ Health in Canada: A Call for a New Approach. Their presentation highlighted the unaddressed health care needs of LGBTQ individuals.

Ellen and Andrew found that despite evidence that the social determinants of health have concrete impacts on the health of Canadians, the Public Health Agency of Canada's Healthy Living Strategy still focuses on individualized components of health such as body weight, eating habits and physical exercise.  Factors such as sexual orientation and gender identity continue to be ignored as important indicators.  This is important as LGBTQ communities have high rates of depression, homelessness, poverty, alcohol and substance abuse, experiences of violence and risk of suicide.