Author(s) :

Anna Coleman.

Volume/Issue :

Abstract :

The queer community has historically been marginalized and discriminated against and consequently faced worse outcomes in the healthcare system. This review aims to identify major barriers to healthcare that affect the LGBTQIA+ community and suggest ways to overcome them. To do this, a PubMed search was conducted with terms such as “queer,” “barriers,” and “healthcare access” to collect articles relating to barriers to healthcare. Included studies had to be original research published in the last ten years that were in English. The selected studies were then analyzed for trends and categorized by the barriers they mentioned. The main barriers identified in this review are discrimination, undertraining of medical staff, disclosure of queer identity, socioeconomic status, and societal stigma. These barriers all intersect and coincide to create the disparities in healthcare that we see. The results of this search emphasize the importance of updating our healthcare system to better accommodate queer patients who may feel hesitant to get the care they need. Requiring more training for medical staff and using more inclusive language on medical documents and forms are examples of recommendations for healthcare policy and practice to improve queer people’s experiences with the healthcare system and encourage them to seek care in the future when they need it.