Project 460978

HEALTH PROBLEM: Even though transgender and gender diverse people are more likely to have poorer mental and physical health, they face more barriers to getting the care they need. Likewise, the lack of health research about transgender individuals makes it challenging to address their care needs. Many Canadians rely on prescription medications to help manage their health and treat diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis. For medications to work, they need to be taken as prescribed which can be a challenge for many patients. We know that transgender people have unique health and medication needs, especially as they grow older. Yet, research on medication taking and how it affects health outcomes among transgender individuals is rare. PLANNING SOLUTION: We aim to fill the transgender health data gap on medication taking through partnering with community stakeholders to develop research questions and priorities informed by the transgender community. First, we will review how sex and gender have been included in the available evidence on medication taking. Following, we will develop collaborations with Canadian patient, researcher, community, and institutional stakeholders through a series of planning activities. We will organize individual and group meetings with stakeholders to develop guidelines for collaboration, discuss research priorities, and design potential research studies. At the end of the year, we will hold a symposium to publicly showcase the impact of our planning activities, share insights on the collaborative process, and discuss plans for future research and advocacy collaborations. To widely share lessons learned by our team, we will create practical tools for researchers on developing ethical research partnerships with key stakeholder groups in the transgender community. IMPORTANCE: Our planning activities will contribute to the design of transgender health research that is informed by the transgender community.