Recommended Actions at Local and State Levels to Help LGBTQIA+ Older Adults

By 2030, just a few years from now, over 10 million Californians will be 60 or older. Approximately 5% of these midlife and older adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, or sexual and/or gender minority (LGBTQIA+), yet relatively little is known about their health and well-being. What is known suggests significant health disparities—disparities that are difficult, if not impossible, to address without more comprehensive, accurate data.

To begin filling these data gaps, the California Department of Aging (CDA) spearheaded the first statewide survey to explore the current and future health and well-being of California’s midlife and older LGBTQIA+ population. The 2024 baseline survey, From Challenges to Resilience, aligns with the goals of California’s Master Plan for Aging, a blueprint for state and local governments and their philanthropic and private-sector partners to prepare for California’s growing population of older adults.

Services designed to promote healthy aging for LGBTQIA+ older adults require specific investments to make them feel safe, seen, and deserving of care. At both local and state levels, consistent with action steps and goals outlined in California’s Master Plan for Aging, the From Challenges to Resilience study team calls for the following:

1. Increasing the number of LGBTQIA+-affirming health care providers, first responders, caregivers, and caseworkers by promoting and providing LGBTQIA+ competency training, continuing education units, and other incentives.
   
2. Developing implementation guidance and standards of care that address the underlying causes of disparities for LGBTQIA+ older adults who are people of color.
   
3. Encouraging multilingual and transgender/gender expansive-affirming design of services, resources, and research, paired with tailored service outreach, to build trust.
   
4. Bringing new voices and experiences into the service area, by encouraging multilingual, people of color, and transgender/gender expansive people with expertise in community-focused outreach and care to serve as patient advocates, researchers, caseworkers, and providers.
   
5. Investing in organizations that have already earned trust and are led by LGBTQIA+ community members (via grants, operating support, and consultancies, among other mechanisms) and routinely seeking and responding to their input (as the survey design did).
   
6. Intensifying data collection efforts that include LGBTQIA+ populations to increase understanding of both gaps and progress. Specifically, this means:
   
   • collecting sexual orientation/gender identity (SOGI) data across state-level data collection forms (with input from community-focused experts on how to ask for this information);
   • tracking progress with specific metrics that are focused on disparities, including specific health and well-being outcomes of programs and policies for LGBTQIA+ older adults’ well-being and service gaps.
   
7. Increasing accountability for making progress by reporting back to LGBTQIA+ organizations and partners across California on the status of these initiatives, particularly:
   
   • community outreach that includes those less represented in the current survey and findings so that they can participate in future data collection efforts and have their voices and experiences reflected (i.e., “Nothing about us without us.”);
   • participation of all LGBTQIA+ voices in policy solutions to address racism and discrimination;
   • outcomes of research and program/service changes that result from community participation in research initiatives.
   

These action steps and goals are included in From Challenges to Resilience: Findings and Implications From California’s First Statewide Survey of LGBTQIA+ Older Adults.

For More Information

The LGBTQIA+ Older Adult Survey Report https://bit.ly/3B5v9Of
California’s Master Plan for Aging https://mpa.aging.ca.gov/
The California Department of Aging https://aging.ca.gov/
Openhouse https://www.openhousesf.org/

LGBTQIA+ Survey Results
Published on December 5, 2024