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Holloway on Fostering Connection Among Gay Men During Pandemic

Associate Professor of Social Welfare Ian Holloway joined Channel Q’s “Let’s Go There” podcast to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gay and bisexual men. In a recent study of over 10,000 gay and bisexual men in 20 countries, Holloway found that boredom, loneliness and isolation are driving some men to seek sex with others outside of their households, while others are turning to technology to fulfill a need for connection. While gay and bisexual men have been targeted as culprits of breaking lockdown orders, nearly two-thirds of the males in the study were following stay-at-home orders in their local jurisdictions, Holloway said. “It’s natural for gay men to want to foster sexual connection during a pandemic,” he said. “This isn’t our first rodeo.” Holloway said he believes there can be good public health messaging around how to maintain sexuality even while taking precautions against COVID. The podcast segment featuring Holloway begins at minute 29.


Luskin Summit Looks at Sexual Health in the COVID-19 Era

The sixth Luskin Summit webinar, “Sexual Health: Hooking Up With Home-Based Testing and Telemedicine,” featured a panel of experts in health care, medicine, research and policy. Moderator Ayako Miyashita Ochoa, adjunct assistant professor of social welfare, explained that while the COVID-19 pandemic has presented new challenges for health care delivery, it has also served as an opportunity to integrate remote practices into sexual health care services. Associate Professor of Social Welfare Ian Holloway highlighted the resilience of sexual health care providers in their ability to pivot to remote care during the pandemic. “Telehealth is here to stay,” he said. Leah Millheiser, senior vice president of medical affairs for the telemedicine company Hims & Hers, noted that many patients who avoided physician offices out of fear of judgment or embarrassment are now taking advantage of telehealth services. Sonali Kulkarni, medical director of the Division of HIV/STD Programs for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said that testing is an essential part of the strategy to address rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases. According to Holloway, physical distancing measures in place around the world have had a significant impact on the mental health of gay and bisexual men. Alex Garner of the Gay Sexuality and Social Policy Initiative at UCLA Luskin has been working on ways to promote and provide public health information on gay social networking apps while still respecting them as unique, cultivated spaces for men to connect with one another and to mitigate experiences of loneliness and isolation during the pandemic. — Zoe Day


Vulnerable Communities Slow to Adopt Key Strategy to Stop HIV’s Spread

Taking a daily pill to prevent HIV transmission is one of the most effective biomedical strategies available to combat the virus’ spread, yet use of this health regimen remains low among vulnerable communities, according to a new paper by Ian Holloway, associate professor of social welfare. The research showed that more than 90% of sexually active gay and bisexual men are familiar with the regimen, known as PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, yet fewer than 8% use it. Black and Latino men have particularly low usage rates, according to the paper just published in PLOS ONE. To measure attitudes toward PrEP, researchers commissioned the Gallup analytics firm to conduct three surveys of gay and bisexual men across the United States between 2016 and 2018. During this time, the study found:

  • Awareness of the regimen increased from 59.8% to 92%.
  • Uptake by those eligible for PrEP rose from 4.1% to 7.8% — a rate that remains disappointingly low.
  • Of those who reported using PrEP, 33.3% discontinued the regimen.

While further research is needed to fully understand reasons for low usage and high discontinuation rates, factors likely include stigma, medication costs, concerns about side effects and lack of access to health care. In addition, “the COVID-19 pandemic has created further obstacles to PrEP access but also opportunities to talk about the sexual health and well-being of gay and bisexual men,” said Holloway, faculty director of the Gay Sexuality and Social Policy Initiative at UCLA Luskin. Data for Holloway’s paper came from the Generations Study focusing on LGBTQ health and well-being, which is led by Ilan H. Meyer of UCLA Law’s Williams Institute.

Holloway Wins Grant to Study Cannabis Marketing to LGBTQ Youth

Ian Holloway, associate professor of social welfare, has received a grant of more than $400,000 from the California Bureau of Cannabis Control to advance his research into the impact of cannabis marketing targeting sexual and gender minority youth. The growing cannabis industry is aggressively pitching its products to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth through online and print media, Holloway said. His research will seek to measure the reach of that messaging and determine whether it leads to greater cannabis use among this group of young people. Filling these knowledge gaps could help explain cannabis-related health disparities among LGBTQ youth and identify targets for regulation of cannabis marketing, he said. Holloway is director of the Hub for Health Intervention, Policy and Practice at UCLA Luskin and a member of the Cannabis Research Initiative at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. He and Evan Krueger, a post-doctoral scholar at USC’s Health, Emotion & Addiction Laboratory, are principal investigators of the study. Their grant from the Bureau of Cannabis Control is a portion of nearly $30 million recently awarded to California universities to study the impact of Proposition 64, which legalized the recreational use of cannabis for people 21 or older. Across UCLA, faculty and research centers have been awarded $6.4 million from the bureau to study topics including the toxicity of inhaled and second-hand cannabis smoke and employment conditions in California’s cannabis industry. UCLA’s extended track record for cutting-edge cannabis research dates as far back as the 1970s.


 

Ritterbusch Speaks to Marginalization of Trans Community

Assistant Professor of Social Welfare Amy Ritterbusch spoke to Buzzfeed News about the death of Alejandra Monocuco, a Black trans sex worker living with HIV in Bogotá. Monocuco’s roommate called an ambulance when she found her struggling to breathe. When the paramedics arrived, they said she did not seem to have COVID-19 symptoms and decided not to take her to the hospital. When a second ambulance arrived a few hours later, Monocuco was dead. “Alejandra was killed by a negligent state that never cared for her throughout her life … for being trans, for being Black, for being poor, for being a sex worker,” said the Trans Community Network, which advocates for sex workers and other marginalized trans communities in Colombia. Ritterbusch, who interviewed Monocuco in 2014, told Buzzfeed, “It was already a death sentence from even this moment many years ago when Alejandra was crying out against police brutality in her life.”


Global Study Finds Critical Gaps in Workplace Protections Laws prohibiting discrimination are key to ensuring equal economic opportunity, UCLA researchers say

As throngs of people around the world stand in solidarity with American protesters calling for an end to racial injustice, a sweeping study of 193 countries by the UCLA WORLD Policy Analysis Center reveals critical gaps in legal protections against discrimination on the job.

Nearly one in four countries continue to have no legal protection from discrimination at work based on race and ethnicity, according to the study, just published in the journal Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

This is not a question of a nation’s resources, researchers found. In fact, high-income countries do slightly worse: 28% of high-income countries fail to have any protections, compared to 19% of low-income countries and 23% of middle-income countries.

Even in countries that prohibit discrimination, substantial gaps in legal protections exist. Globally, 51% of countries offer no protection from retaliation against workers who report discriminatory treatment based on race or ethnicity, preventing individuals from accessing justice, the study revealed.

Moreover, laws against discrimination often provided only partial protection or failed to specify areas covered. The study analyzed laws and regulations governing hiring, pay, promotions and demotions, terminations and harassment in all 193 members of the United Nations.

“Discrimination at work persists across countries, but there is powerful evidence that anti-discrimination laws can make a difference,” said Jody Heymann, founder of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center and a distinguished professor of public policy, health policy and management, and medicine at UCLA. “All the world’s countries have agreed to address inequality, over and over again, at the U.N. This cannot be achieved without providing legal guarantees to non-discrimination at work for all people.”

In addition to race and ethnicity, WORLD researchers assessed gaps in national legislation protecting against discrimination based on sex, parenting status, gender identity, sexual orientation, migrant status and foreign national origin, among other groupings. Among the findings:

• 53% of the countries do not guarantee equal pay for work of equal value based on sex
• 62% do not prohibit discrimination based on parenting status
• 68% do not guarantee protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation
• 90% do not guarantee protection from discrimination at work based on gender identity
• 62% do not guarantee protection from discrimination based on migrant status
• 62% do not guarantee protection from discrimination based on foreign national origin

“Equal access to decent work is one of the most promising ways to end cycles of poverty, yet discrimination on the job persists,” said study co-author Amy Raub, principal research analyst at WORLD. “Legal protection from workplace discrimination is a critical first step to ensuring equal opportunities for economic success.”

In addition to the newly published research, the WORLD Policy Analysis Center has posted detailed data, maps, charts and policy briefs on workplace discrimination in four categories: race and ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, and migrant status.

Holloway Studies Cannabis Use in LGBTQ Community

Associate Professor of Social Welfare Ian Holloway was mentioned in a High Times article about rates of cannabis use within the LGBTQ community. Most of the data pertaining to cannabis consumption relies on self-reporting, and there is still much to learn about consumption patterns among LGBTQ people. Last year, Holloway was awarded $400,000 for research into tobacco and cannabis use among sexual- and gender-minority young people. While previous studies of tobacco products have shown higher frequency of use within LGBTQ communities, less is known about specific subgroups of LGBTQ people or their use of cannabis. Holloway said his research, conducted in partnership with the Los Angeles LGBT Center, aims to achieve “better understanding of tobacco and cannabis-related health disparities among LGBT young people, which is crucial to improve both short-term and long-term health in LGBT communities.”


Blood Donation Ban Rooted in Fear, Not Science, Holloway Says

Associate Professor of Social Welfare Ian Holloway was featured in a Washington Post video about the FDA’s recent decision to ease restrictions on blood donations from gay men. In 1985, the FDA prohibited blood donations from men who had sex with other men even once since 1977. “I think it’s important to recognize that the ban really is rooted in discriminatory attitudes and based on fear and not science,” Holloway explained. In 2015, the lifetime ban became a 12-month ban, which was lowered to three months of abstinence this year. Many gay men who have recovered from COVID-19 have been disheartened to find that they are unable to donate antibodies due to the restrictions. “Many hold the opinion, myself included, that the ban is based on stigma, not science,” Holloway said. “I think the shortening of the deferral period is a step in the right direction, but I don’t think it goes far enough.”


Research on Acceptance of Transgender Troops Cited

A UCLA Luskin Social Welfare study finding widespread support of transgender troops within the U.S. military was featured in a report on National Public Radio. The study, funded by the U.S. Defense Department and co-authored by doctoral candidate Shannon Dunlap, Associate Professor Ian Holloway and others, showed strong acceptance across the four branches of the military and across racial lines and sexual orientation. “This broad support from cisgender, heterosexual and LGB service members really just speaks to the valuable contributions that diversity does bring to the United States military,” Dunlap said. The study found the highest rates of acceptance among service members who identified as gay, as women or as people of color. Dunlap attributed this support to the ongoing fight for equality for many marginalized groups. “They really have historically gone through great lengths to serve honorably in the U.S. military, and they experience the same stressors,” she said.

 

U.S. Lagging on Constitutional Rights, Study Finds

New research from the UCLA WORLD Policy Analysis Center shows that the United States is falling behind its global peers when it comes to guarantees for key constitutional rights. “The new decade begins with clear constitutional gaps that place the United States in a global minority” for failing to guarantee rights to healthcare and gender equality, said Jody Heymann, founder of the nonprofit policy research center. “Globally, the U.S. now lags 165 other nations with stronger constitutional protections for women. And the U.S. is absent from the 142 countries globally … that provide some degree of constitutional protection for the right to health,” said Heymann, a distinguished professor of public policy, medicine, and health policy and management at UCLA. Worldwide, the center’s researchers found a considerable expansion of protections over the past 50 years but noted that millions are still left without human rights guarantees, leaving them vulnerable to discrimination. Groups experiencing the greatest gaps in rights guarantees include migrants, people with disabilities and the LGBTQ community. To produce the report, researchers analyzed the constitutions of all 193 United Nations member states. “Constitutions help shape social norms and send clear messages about who matters and what nations value,” Heymann said. The report is now available as an online resource featuring policy briefs, maps and downloadable data as well as the book “Advancing Equality,” available for  download at UC Press. The book’s authors, Heymann, Amy Raub and Aleta Sprague, also wrote an op-ed for CNN arguing that it’s time for the United States to guarantee gender equality by enshrining the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.