Project Background
There is a growing literature that documents the poor health outcomes faced by gender and sexual minority patients. Some of these negative health outcomes can be attributed to societal problems like minority stress caused by homophobia, transphobia within society overall. However, there is also growing evidence about the negative effect of health care providers' homophobia and transphobia on the health care experiences and access to care for minoritized groups.
The proposed study has two aims: 1) To identify the prevalence of inclusive practices in future health care providers (in their pre-professional activities like internships, shadowing, etc.), i.e. use of correct names and pronouns. 2) to assess fundamental views about gender and sexuality held by future health care providers (i.e. how do participate define gender?)
Understanding these two important components will help us identify interventions aimed at reducing harmful practices and to create a more inclusive health care environment.
Student Role
The SPUR student will work closely with the faculty mentor in analyzing and interpreting findings from a study of attitudes in pre-med students (in the field in fall '21 and spring '22), and recruit additional participants for the study in School of Medicine summer programs for undergraduate students, and assist the mentor in expanding the study to also include medical students. The student will attend meetings with administrators in the school of medicine to gauge interest in their participation in future, larger studies that systematically assess medical students' (and later, school of medicine faculty's) concepts and understanding of gender and sexuality. The SPUR student will attend meetings, analyze data (if able), interpret results, and assist with manuscript preparation. During the summer, preliminary data will be analyzed, and additional data will be collected, and a proposal for future data collection will be developed. This ensures insights into all stages of the research process. The student will be expected to participate in writing editing drafts of scholarly manuscripts for both health sciences and sociology/gender studies audiences. If desired, the student can become a co=author in manuscripts based on work during the summer.
Student Learning Outcomes and Benefits
- The student will learn with the processes of IRB approval and complete all relevant training. T
- The student will become familiar with data management of small/medium size survey-based studies.
- The student will gain experience with in-person email recruiting for survey-based studies.
- The student will develop critical insights into the difficulties with sample (self-selection) in studies with sensitive topics
- The student will gain insights into the grant writing process of the faculty mentor.
- The student will experience presenting research to different audiences
- The student will gain experience in writing research manuscripts in two different disciplines
- The student will make connections with faculty in the School for Cultural and Social - Transformation (in informal settings) and faculty and researchers in the School of Medicine informal settings through participation in meetings with the division of family planning and meetings with the school of medicine administrators.
Claudia Geist
My research interests fall into three broad categories: 1) the association between attitudes, economic circumstances, and health and family formation and family planning; 2) the social construction of family, gender, and sexuality, and 3) gender inequality as it relates to the intersection of family and work.
In my mentoring, I strive for transparency. I will share the challenges (and benefits) of doing research at the intersection of multiple disciplines, in my case sociology, gender studies, and health sciences, and the limitations that come with the use of survey-based research. I want students to learn but also think critically about the research activities in which they engaged. I am always eager to adapt my processes and will make it clear to the mentee that mentors need to listen to (and learn from) students. Specific mentoring activities: Twice-weekly meetings about research progress and to inform students of mentor activities The student will have access to early drafts of the mentor's writing, to gain insights into the “messiness” of the process. The student will have the option to accompany the mentor into meetings with SOM administrators seeking support for future research activities The student will participate in meetings with possible collaborators of grant future grants applications based on the SPUR project. Mentor will provide feedback on student performance in co-organizing data collection efforts, working with data, interpretation of results, and manuscript preparation Mentor will assist and provide feedback for the student's poster. Mentor will work with the student to identify additional venues to present student work Mentor will commit to making student co-author of publication(s) that were based on student work during SPUR if the student is interested.