Michele J. Eliason, PhD
Peggy L. Chinn, RN, PhD, FAAN
The purpose of this book is to serve as an introduction to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and
queer (LGBTQ) health issues for practicing healthcare professionals, to offer healthcare professionals
tools for creating safer and more inclusive environments for the people they serve, and to
create a more humane workplace for LGBTQ healthcare workers. The book provides a broad overview
of the issues that are shared among those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or queer,
but does not provide detailed information on how to care for each specific population. When we wrote the
first edition in the mid-2000s, there was much less information available on any aspect of LGBTQ health
except for sexual health and some aspects of mental health. That is rapidly changing, but in our second
edition, we decided to stay with our original intent to offer foundational information on LGBTQ concepts,
terminology, and health disparities that cut across the subsets of the LGBTQ population. In spite
of burgeoning research that documents health disparities, the research literature still lacks information
on interventions and we still cannot say definitively what effect an LGBTQ inclusive healthcare setting
would have on health outcomes. There is still much work to be done.
This second edition has 14 chapters, compared to the 10 in the first edition. Because sexual orientation
questions have been added to many national and state level health surveillance instruments, we
have much more information on health disparities than previously, so we divided one chapter from the
first edition on impact of stigma on health into three chapters, starting with impact of stigma on health
and well-being in general, and then separate chapters on mental health (including substance abuse) and
chronic physical health. We also divided a chapter on diversity within LGBTQ communities into two
chapters: one focused on age/generational differences and one on other forms of intersecting identities
that impact health.