Call for Papers: Social and Behavioral Aspects of LGBT Health | Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Third Special Section on Understanding and Minimizing Health Disparities: Focus on Social and Behavioral Aspects of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Health
In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued the report, The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for a Better Understanding, which described the large disparities found in these populations, including disparities in physical health outcomes and inequities in healthcare access. The report noted the need for a firm foundation of research on LGBT health, and highlighted the need for studies in several areas related to behavioral medicine, including social influences on the lives of LGBT people (social structures such as families); inequities in healthcare (e.g., in access to care); interventions to decrease disparities (including intervention development research to identify underlying mechanisms leading to risk); and transgender-specific health needs.
Annals of Behavioral Medicine is committed to publishing excellent research on health disparities and has released two Special Sections to date on racial/ethnic health disparities. The focus of this third special section is on social and behavioral aspects of LGBT health disparities. The journal aims to attract a broad set of manuscripts on a variety of disease conditions, intervention modalities, and risk and protective factor(s).
Following IOM recommendations, articles should use one or more of the following questions as an underlying theoretical framework:
- How do social influences, structures, and contexts (e.g., families, schools, networks) serve as or moderate risk (e.g., stress, stigma, poor coping) or protective factors (e.g., social support) to maintaining or reducing LGBT health disparities, including in risk, disease outcomes and healthcare inequities?
- What kinds of psychosocial variables mediate the relationship between LGBT identity and health? Which cross-cutting socio-demographic characteristics might help to elucidate our understanding of LGBT health disparities (e.g., age, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity) and in what ways?
- What types of behavioral and psychosocial interventions can help to reduce LGBT health disparities?
Letters of Intent (LOIs) for this Special Section are due by February 15, 2013. To submit a Letter of Intent, please use the PDF template that can be found at https://dl.dropbox.com/u/17267366/LOI3.pdf
LOIs should include the following sections:
- Rationale of how the manuscript complements and extends prior and current work on health disparities, and how it will contribute to theory, policy or practice
- Specific hypotheses or research questions
- Research methods, including sample definition and selection procedures, research design, intervention design (if applicable), and key constructs
- Central findings that address the major research questions. If the study involves statistical analyses, statistical analysis techniques and primary statistical findings supporting the research questions must be presented in the text as well as a table. If the study involves a qualitative analysis (e.g., narrative analysis, focus groups, discourse analysis), the methods used for analyzing the data should be described and summary findings should be presented in the text and a table.
- Assurance that that all data to be analyzed for this manuscript have been collected and analyzed at the time of this submission.
Sections 1-4 of the LOI should fit into the existing text boxes of the PDF. Please title the LOI as: [Your last name]_LOI_Round3. Once the LOI is completed and saved, please send it to the Senior Editor of the LGBT Special Section, Laura M. Bogart, PhD, at email@example.com
The described research in the LOI should not be a mere documentation of LGBT health disparities, but instead should examine mechanisms that could explain the disparity. Although between-group studies (i.e., comparing LGBT to heterosexual individuals) can be presented as evidence for health disparities, within-group studies on a particular LGBT group that experiences significant disparities are also welcome. Both intervention and non-intervention studies are invited, as are both quantitative and qualitative studies. LOIs will be evaluated by the special section editors in terms of the adequacy of the theoretical or conceptual framework for the study; the study’s significance and contribution to the field; the study’s methodological adequacy, in terms of design, operationalization of constructs, sampling, and data analyses; and the overall comprehensibility and clarity of the writing. LOIs that do not present primary results will not be considered. In addition, the study’s main focus should be physical health disparities among LGBT people. LOIs focused solely on mental health or substance use outcomes will not be considered. LOIs that pass the first stage of review will be invited for full manuscript submission and peer review by the end of February, 2013. Manuscripts will be due by April 15, 2013. The journal is committed to devoting substantial journal space to health disparities research throughout future issues.
Special Section Editors: Laura M. Bogart, PhD, Harvard Medical School; Tracey A. Revenson, PhD, Graduate Center, City University of New York; Keith E. Whitfield, PhD, Duke University
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