Harvard launches research center focused on LGBT health – Boston Business Journal

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, a department of Harvard Medical School focused on population health, have launched a new research and teaching center to advance LGBT health equity.

The new LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence will have three areas of focus, according to Brittany Charlton, an associate professor at Harvard and the inaugural director of the center. It aims to train the next generation of LGBT health leaders; expand the knowledge and evidence base around LGBT health through research; and disseminate information to policy makers and the larger public to improve health equity. The work will be at the intersection of public health and medicine, according to Charlton.

Charlton said over her career she has seen the public health field’s focus on the LGBT community shift from being centered around HIV/AIDS to focusing more broadly on health equity.

“Seeing that trajectory, and seeing what is left to be done — and there’s a lot — is the origin story of the center,” she said. 

In its first year, the center plans to design a new curriculum related to LGBT health and award grants, scholarships and fellowships to students and researchers focused on the issue. The work will be largely funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, but will also receive some financing from Harvard internally and philanthropy, according to Charlton.

The center officially launched June 4 in honor of Pride Month, but it’s been years in the making, Charlton said. 

“When I think about Pride, I also think about how our community needs so much more than just rainbow flags and parades,” she said. The center aims to combat waves of anti-LGBT policies being proposed in state legislatures across the county, according to Charlton. It will also research how different policies impact the community. 

“We are in a moment now where this work is so needed,” she said. 

The center’s inaugural staff have been named, which includes 13 faculty members from the Harvard Pilgrim institute and the school of public health.