The Santa Clara County Public Health Department is urging members of county's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT community to participate a free health assessment survey of adults and youths.
The online survey of adult LGBT community members aged 18 and over runs until Oct. 11 and the youth survey for ages 13 to 17 will be available until midnight Oct. 23, public health department spokeswoman Amy Cornell said.
The questions in the survey ask LGBT members about their general health, mental health, sexual health and social cohesion, including relations with their families and other interactions, Cornell said.
"We live in such a diverse county, one in which the LGBT community is very important," Cornell said.
"This assessment gives us an opportunity to understand the concerns of LGBT individuals and the whole community from many different aspects, rather than evaluating the needs of the community through one lens -- HIV/AIDS," Cornell said
"This first of its kind assessment gives us the chance to evaluate the LGBT community in so many ways, and includes a broad age range, from youth to seniors," she said.
The assessment will enable the county to document the major health issues in the LGBT community and use the data to help decide where to allocate county resources and plan health services, Cornell said.
Local
The county also intends to share the information with local LGBT community organizations to use to seek funding for services, Cornell said.
The health assessment is being done as the request of county Board of Supervisors President Ken Yeager, who called for it during his 2013 State of the County speech earlier this year, Cornell said.
The county is offering $5 Amazon gift cards to the first 500 adults participating in the survey, which takes 15 to 20 minutes to complete, and $5 Starbucks cards to youths who fill out the survey that takes about 10 minutes, Cornell said.
The survey may be accessed here:
http://www.sccgov.org/sites/sccphd/en-us/Partners/Data/Pages/LGBT-Health-Survey.aspx
