HealthyPeople.gov

This website's mission is to:

• Identify nationwide health improvement priorities.
• Increase public awareness and understanding of the determinants of health, disease, and disability and the opportunities for progress.
• Provide measurable objectives and goals that are applicable at the national, State, and local levels.
• Engage multiple sectors to take actions to strengthen policies and improve practices that are driven by the best available evidence and knowledge.
• Identify critical research, evaluation, and data collection needs

The topic I chose to write about was lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health. Because they are denied civil and human rights, the LGBT community has higher rates of psychotic disorders, substance abuse, and suicide. It is important to research and understand factors that contribute to health disparities so they can be addressed and eliminated. The benefits for addressing these concerns are: reduced health care costs, increased well-being, increased longevity, and reductions in disease transmissions. The introduce a lot of ways to improve LGBT health that I feel can only be achieved if people stop discriminating so they LGBT community can live as equals. A major discrimination includes access to health care. Also, the LGBT community needs to be kept safe in school and in other public areas.

The page on this website does an excellent job at getting the facts straight (pun!) and pointing out the areas in society that need improvement but it doesn't offer ideas on how it could change those areas. My guess is that they don't want to get too in detail because it is a hot button issue for both sides, gays and straights.

The information on this area of the site doesn't contain any new information that I didn't already know but I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that would be educated by reading the information it has to offer. This site could be used as awareness. People should know what's going on.