By: Lucaiah Smith-Miodownik, News Writer
A new survey titled “Our Bodies, Our Health” wants to better understand the sexual and reproductive health needs of 2SLGBTQIA+ Canadians. The study is headed by the Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC), in partnership with the Health Initiative for Men (HIM) and Investigaytors, among other organizations. The Peak spoke with Kartik Arora, a team lead for HIM and Investigaytors, about the survey and what it means for the future.
Both CBRC and HIM focus on the health of gender and sexually diverse community members. CBRC is a research and project-based organization, while HIM focuses on the latter. Similarly, Investigaytors is “a national community-based research program,” Arora said. “Specifically in BC, it’s a community health leadership program for 2SLGBTQIA+ community members who are interested in health research.”
The survey results will help HIM “create interventions or programs” designed to “address those gaps that we find in the data,” Arora said. “A lot of queer folks, especially younger queer folks, might share a primary care provider with their parents or their family members. And so sometimes people can still be worried about confidentiality and information getting out,” he explained. “A lot of times what we see is queer communities often have to educate their own healthcare providers on their specific queer health needs and sexual health needs as well.” Since the survey is still ongoing and all the data is yet to be obtained, it’s difficult to predict what these programs might look like, Arora said.
Beyond local implications, the data will be shared on the provincial and national levels and with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which helped fund the study. “Once the data is collected and compiled, we’d be able to inform on policies and practices and take this data to those bodies that inform regulations and pass legislations and policies about the lives of 2SLGBTQIA+ members in Canada.” Arora emphasized that “it’s one thing just to collect data, but if you don’t do much with it, or have reciprocal means of sharing the data as well, it can often look like you’re tokenizing a specific community, especially a marginalized community.”
Lack of access to the HPV vaccine, which defends against both genital warts and various cancers, represents another challenge for some members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Arora explained that the shot is “only free in BC up to 26 years of age and younger, even though it is recommended for queer men that are older than 27.”
“I love that this survey allows community to lead community.” — Kartik Arora, team lead at Health Initiative for Men, Investigaytors
What makes this survey special is its “community-driven” roots, Arora said. “A lot of times when you have surveys about our communities, they’re often created by certain bodies in the silo,” he explained. In the case of “Our Bodies, Our Health,” Arora said “there’s been so many voices and input going into designing this survey.”
Designing the questions did not come without challenges. “Narrowing down the scope,” while “making sure that we had questions in each of the areas that we wanted to focus on and prioritize,” was one obstacle, he explained. Ensuring the survey was “accessible and can be finished in a certain allotted time frame” was a challenge as well.
The study is special in that “in contrast to previous queer research surveys, this one also tackles on endeavors related to sexual and reproductive care, gender affirming care, and sex and pleasure, which are often overlooked.” Additionally, “each province that is administering the survey will have their own unique questions” within the survey, to provide a better glimpse into “what’s going on in local communities,” Arora explained.
For instance, “in BC, our healthcare system is split into multiple health authorities spread across the region,” so some questions may ask which region participants live in and where they access services. He explained that such an inquiry will provide an idea of whether individuals are looking for services outside of their regional authority.
“It really does take all parts of the community and different people at different places to come together to be able to do this kind of work,” Arora added. “I love that this survey allows community to lead community.”
The “Our Bodies, Our Health” survey will be available in person at Vancouver Pride from August 2–3. The survey is also open until mid-September online.
