LGBTI Health Summit

The LGBTI Health Summits are an opportunity for individuals working for the health of intersex, trans, bisexual, lesbian and gay health to meet and share ideas. Attendees are mostly health activists, a mix of medical care professionals, alternative and complementary health providers, outreach workers, volunteers, and other interested parties.

The LGBTI Health Summits grew out of a resurgence in queer health movements which looked beyond a victim deficit based model of disease, using an asset based approach built on the World Health Organisation definition of health as a state of physical,mental and social wellbeing not just the absence of disease.

The LGBTI Health Summits grew out of the first Gay Men's Health Summit, held in Boulder, Colorado in 1999.

Three national health summits have been held in the United States, many regional health summits, and several other countries (United Kingdom [http://www.lgbthealth.co.uk/] , France [http://sante-gaie2005.thewarning.info/eng/home.html] ) have hosted similar meetings as well.

The first National LGBTI Health Summit was held in Boulder, Colorado in 2002. The second was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2004. The third was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2007. [http://www.healthsummit2007.org]

Gay Men's Health Summits have been held in Boulder, Colorado in 1999 and 2000, and Gay, Bisexual and Trans Men's Summits in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2003 [http://www.ericrofes.com/policy/co_2003_summit.php] , and Salt Lake City, Utah in 2006 [http://www.utahaids.org/index.php?id=NDk3] .

The UK LGBT Health Summits [http://www.lgbthealth.co.uk]

The first UK LGBT Health Summit was held in London in 2006 with over 160 healthcare professionals, voluntary and statutory sector professionals, activists, community organisers and grass roots campaigners. Held over two days the summit was supported by the Department of Health, Gay & Lesbian Association of Doctors and Dentists, Terrence Higgins Trust, Health First, Metro Centre and the Scottish Inclusion Project. The UK LGBT Health Summit has committed to leaving a legacy in the form of written summaries of the summit on the website and a training DVD on trans health matters which is hosted by Health First [http://www.healthfirst.nhs.uk] .

The second UK LGBT Health Summit will be held in Manchester on August 20th & 21st.

Further reading

Several bloggers [http://www2.blogger.com/profile/16540542114328173459] sponsored by the National LGBT tobacco control network [http://www.lgbttobacco.org/] recorded events and impressions from the 2007 LGBTI Health Summit.