Health summit seeks to address how health professionals can adapt care to address the experiences of different generations
IN THE JEWISH community, it was the Holocaust. In the Japanese-Canadian community, it was the Second World War internment. In numerous other communities that have experienced widespread devastation or loss, the fallout from such traumatic historical events can engulf a huge amount of the community’s focus, energy, and even identity for decades afterward.
For gay men, it was the AIDS pandemic.
While HIV and AIDS continue to be significant concerns in gay communities, numerous individuals and organizations are drawing attention to how other health issues, ranging from prostate cancer to addiction, have been systemically neglected.
This year’s B.C. Gay Men’s Health Summit, being held on Thursday and Friday (November 7 and 8), is one such awareness-raising entity. Rick Marchand, the managing director of Vancouver’s Community-Based Research Centre, which organizes the conference, explained why they chose life-course theory-which looks at how each generation is influenced by unique factors in the time period in which it grew up (rather than universal life stages or biological markers)-as this year’s theme.
Craig Takeuchi
Straight.com
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