documenting health disparities.

My early research sought to raise awareness of the impact of stigma by documenting the significant disparities across health outcomes for SGM. For example, with a large nation-wide collaboration of scientists, I utilized Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance data – pooled across 14 jurisdictions and two years of data collection – to provide some of the strongest empirical evidence documenting health disparities in SGM youth. This analysis culminated into fourteen publications across a wide range of health topics (e.g., obesity, cancer risk behaviors, mental health, victimization, school health), the majority of which were featured within a special issue of the American Journal of Public Health. This work is currently being extended by my close colleague (R01 AA024409, PI: Phillips, Co-I: Birkett) who is further pooling and analyzing local and national YRBS data.