Engaging the New Generation of Health Providers in Serving Older LGBT Adults: Conferences as Tools

Dear Editor:

We read with interest the article by Nowakowski, Chan, Miller, and Sumerau (2019) titled “Illness Management in Older Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Couples: A Review” and commend the authors for reviewing the current research on the health of older sexually and/or gender diverse couples. Their review demonstrated that older lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) patients tend to have weaker social support and face greater health disparities than their cis-gendered, heterosexual counterparts (Nowakowski et al., 2019). The authors suggest that the implications of their review will illuminate potential tools for engaging and serving these elders. To expand upon this, we believe that medical and health education conferences can be used as tools to engage the new generation of health providers to serve this vulnerable population.

Based on our experience in organizing annual LGBT health conferences in California for four consecutive years (2016-2019), we have been able to further explore the issues that older LGBT adults face using this platform. Each year, we invite 8 to 10 speakers to address various topics in the LGBT community through 1.5-hr-long workshops. On average, we have an attendance of 100 to 150 people consisting of students, trainees, and health professionals.

Nowakowski et al. (2019) found that older LGBT adults are closed off to certain resources in housing and medical access due to the lack of legal protections outlawing discrimination against them in certain states. One of our workshops, titled “Supporting LGBT Older Adults,” also reported that a reason this population has less social support is due to fewer legal protections. A solution suggested in the workshop was to connect such older LGBT adults with SAGEcare, a national project focused on advocacy and services for LGBT elders (LGBT Aging Training and Consulting for a Better Workplace SAGECare, 2018). For the next generation of health providers attending the conference, this workshop connected them to the appropriate resources but more importantly provided a space to discuss other innovative solutions.

In this review, the authors highlighted that LGBT people were afraid of disclosing their sexual and gender identities to medical providers because of long-term abuses and mistreatments against LGBT people in medicine (Croghan, Moone, & Olson, 2014; Nowakowski et al., 2019). We agree with the authors entirely and as such, one of our workshops, titled “Generation Silent: Role of Healthcare Providers in the Care of Older LGBT Individuals,” emphasized to the next generation of health providers that older LGBT adults tend to distrust doctors. The workshop suggested that a way to gain their trust in a clinical setting was to display symbols of support such as rainbow stickers or flags. This workshop allowed attendees to see that their role in serving the “generation silent” was by first earning their trust.

In conclusion, we need to accurately gauge the most pressing health concerns of older LGBT adults to discover potential tools for engaging and serving these elders. From the feedback on our workshops, we see health conferences as one of these tools. Future studies should be designed to further understand the impact of medical and health education conferences on the next generation of health providers in serving the “generation silent.”