Posted by anderc8 on Thursday, November 2, 2017 in News, TIPs 2017.

Written by Stephanie Wang, Vanderbilt Class of 2021

As a way to introduce you to faculty from the LGBT Policy Lab, first-year student Stephanie Wang will interview a different faculty member approximately each month and write a brief faculty profile. Stephanie reached out to the Vanderbilt LGBT Policy Lab prior to her arrival on campus this fall, as she is passionate about the issues being addressed in the TIPS project. Stephanie arrived at Vanderbilt from Pittsburgh, where she was active in a political activism organization, a robotics team, the varsity swim team as well as several writing publications. She plans to major in Computer Science.  At Vanderbilt, she writes for the Hustler, the Slant and the Vanderbilt Political Review. She is also involved with the Engineering Council and the Community Building, Outreach and Diversity Committee of Vanderbilt Student Government.  

To inform each Vanderbilt LGBT Policy Lab faculty profile, Stephanie is asking a range of questions, such as: What is the faculty member’s background? How did the faculty member become interested in research on LGBT public policies? How are LGBT issues treated in the faculty member’s broader academic discipline? The second faculty member to be profiled in this series is Gilbert Gonzales, Assistant Professor of Health Policy:

While Gilbert Gonzales originally thought the focus of his research would be on health care reform, he became very interested in same-sex marriage laws. This interest only grew after Minnesota adopted same-sex marriage while he was pursuing a Ph.D. in Health Policy at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. As more and more states began considering legalizing same-sex marriage, sparking debate and controversy, Gonzales wanted to study the impacts of new laws popping up around the country in order to provide the facts to inform the debate. For his dissertation research, Gonzales studied the associations and impacts of same-sex marriage laws on health insurance coverage in same-sex households. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, he monitored disparities and changes in employer-sponsored health insurance coverage for same-sex couples and their children.

Now an assistant professor in Health Policy at Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine, Gonzales seeks to understand this relationship on a deeper level. He serves as a co-investigator on the Vanderbilt LGBT Policy Lab, a project funded by the university’s Trans-Institutional Programs initiative.

In addition to this university-affiliated research project, Gonzales volunteers on a project with the Tennessee Health Care Campaign (THCC), a non-profit policy organization that aims to find solutions to improve access to health care for Tennesseans. The THCC examines issues that specifically impact the access to healthcare for LGBT individuals living in Tennessee. Previously, these individuals were rarely asked about their health behaviors and access to care, and Gonzales helped the THCC design a survey that asks LGBT Tennesseans about their health insurance coverage.

In the future, Gonzales is interested in studying the relationship between LGBT policies (both nationally and globally) and the health and well-being of LGBT people by leveraging big data. One day, he hopes to study posts, shares, comments and status updates on social media channels like Twitter and Facebook. He currently teaches a University Course on Health Policy and Advocacy (The Nation’s Health: From Policy to Practice) alongside Assistant Professor Tara McKay, and part of the class involves bringing students to the state capital to discuss health issues with state legislators.

“There needs to be more surveys and datasets including sexual orientation and gender identity so that we can enter this new era of research and begin to learn more about LGBT families and relationships, as well as the early impact of LGBT laws on LGBT households,” says Gonzales. “This should be an important issue to everyone because we all know LGBT individuals: whether it’s LGBT family members, friends or neighbors.”