Medical researchers have developed an app for Apple iOS to help better understand the health needs of the LGBT community.
With today’s ruling by the Supreme Court, which extended marriage equality nationwide, and transgender celebrities making headlines across the United States, the LGBT movement can celebrate their progress and many successes.
But we’re still far behind when it comes to addressing the health and wellness issues of the people that make up the LGBT community. To address these issues, the UCSF launched a new study on Thursday entitled “PRIDE (Population Research in Identity and Disparities for Equality) Study” — and they’re using iPhones in their research.
According to an SFGate report, the study will collect information from both Internet and iPhone users to build a database – the largest to date – of the “physical, mental and social issues that uniquely affect gay and transgender men and women.” The study will cover health issues like cancer, HIV/AIDS, obesity, smoking, and mental health.
Volunteers can sign up for the study by installing the app, developed using Apple’s ResearchKit tool. Participants will have to agree to contribute health and demographic details about themselves. Alternately, people can also join the study via the website www.pridestudy.org.
“Ideally we would like to get tens of thousands of participants,” said Dr. Mitchell Lunn, a UCSF nephrologist and co-director of PRIDE study.
Ideally we would like to get tens of thousands of participants and follow people for decades, something like 30 years. The goal is to figure out how being a sexual or gender minority influences physical or mental health.
The Washington Post reports that recent studies have found “clear disparities” among the straight population and sexual minority groups. The information available is very limited, however. The hopes of the research team from San Francisco, California behind the PRIDE study is to gather more information from as many volunteers as possible.
