Eastern Sierras LGBTQ+ Rural Health
Empowering LGBTQ+ Healthcare
This project was created to learn about the general health care experiences and needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, two-spirit, intersex, and asexual/aromantic (LGBTQ+) people living in the Eastern Sierras. We also want to learn about the general health care experiences and needs of the health care workers providing services in the Eastern Sierras . We hope that this information can improve the capacity of affirming LGBTQ+ health care services to the people of the Eastern Sierras and provide providers with more tools to serve our community.
To learn more, we will launch online surveys (one for patients, and one for health care workers) in 2025 and later hold interviews with interested participants. Our surveys will be available in English and Spanish. In addition to our study team, this project is guided by a Community Advisory Board of local stakeholders.
If you are a LGBTQ+ resident or provide health care in the Eastern Sierras, please sign up to learn more and will contact you when we are ready to launch the survey.
This project is funded by the LBTQ+ Health Equity Initiative of the California Department of Public Health and the UCLA LGBTQ+ Health Initiatives Fund.
LGBTQ+ Rural Health Team
Emery H. Chang, MD
Principle Investigator
I first went to the Eastern Sierras in 2011 and immediately fell in love with the area. Since then, I have been a part time resident in Mammoth and have been connected to the LGBTQ+ community locally. As a physician specializing in LGBTQ+ and HIV primary care at UCLA, I'm now the lead physician in the Rural LGBTQ+ Health Project that will give insights into the health care needs of the LGBTQ+ people in the Eastern Sierras and also understand what the needs of our health care workers have in providing LGBTQ+ affirming care. My other work includes teaching at the David Geffen School of Medicine, working on LGBTQ+ infrastructure at UCLA Health and also experience in developing health care infrastructure in Rwanda. In my free time, I love skiing, hiking and traveling.
Dani Heffernan, MA
Project Coordinator
I’m a PhD candidate in Anthropology at UCLA. For the past two years, I coordinated medical students and faculty at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine as part of a curriculum focused on health needs of LGBTQ+ patients. Prior to graduate school, I worked in communications at several non-profit organizations.
Contact
If you have questions about the study, please contact us at [email protected].
Survey
Please check back in January 2025 for a link to our survey! We can send you the survey by email when it’s ready, if you would like to share our information:
For LGBTQ+ Community members: https://forms.office.com/r/Ts6HF60RU1
For Health Care Providers: https://forms.office.com/r/3m5jAxTQ9J