The Fenway Institute’s Highlights of 2021

We achieved a great deal this year through the collaborative efforts of our faculty and staff. This included widespread dissemination of our work, success in grant-making for new work, and advancing the goals of our strategic plan. Some key highlights include:

• A new textbook with McGraw Hill publishing company titled Transgender and Gender Diverse Health Care: The Fenway Guide. 
• $22M in new funding, representing 19 new projects. This includes a $19M grant from HRSA HIV/AIDS Bureau titled Innovative Intervention Strategies Coordinating Center for Technical Assistance Award that will focus on the selection, implementation and dissemination of HIV-focused intervention strategies for substance use disorders, LGBTQIA+ youth, incarceration, and telehealth across 20 pilot subawardee sites across the country. 
• Two successful conferences including the 7^th Annual Advancing Excellence in Transgender Health Conference with- Dr. Rachel L. Levine, Assistant Secretary for Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as keynote speaker, attended by over 500 people worldwide, as well as the LGBT Elders in an Ever-Changing World Virtual Conference sponsored by The Aging Project with over 250 attendees from 18 states and even one participant from Paris!
• Receiving the 9^th Annual LGBT Health Workforce Organization Leadership Award for the work of the Division of Education and Training.
• Over 165 new peer reviewed publications authored by TFI Faculty.

• 1,200+ media hits, including:

• • A Boston Globe Op Ed by Kenneth Mayer on HIV and COVID-19
  • Chris Grasso’s New York Times interview on the fear of LGBTQ invisibility in COVID-19 data
  • The Advocate’s op/ed Is Being an Older LGBTQ+ Person as Terrifying as It Sounds?, which cited research led by Sean Cahill
  • An NBC News interview with Alex Keuroghlian about a request from Senators for Biden Administration guidance around the mental health of transgender young people
  • A Boston Spirit Magazine piece written by Bob Linscott highlighting the Aging Project’s partnership with StoryCorps to ensure the voices of many area LGBTQIA+ luminaries were captured during their 2021 mobile tour

• A Policy Brief outlining the harm of restricting access to healthcare, school activities and athletics from transgender youth written by Sean Cahill with collaboration from Carrie Richgels and Carl Sciortino.
• The Lancet’s HIV in the USA Series publication with Ken Mayer as editor 
• Launch of an online Curriculum on LGBTQIA+ Health hosted by the American Medical Association Ed Hub.
• A focus group partnership with InterACT, to explore how to ask questions about sex development so that we can identify intersex patients and ensure that they receive high quality care.

The Fenway Institute is engaged in dozens of research studies. A few highlights of this year’s activities include:

• Enrollment of over 200 participants in the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine trial- a huge team effort and success.
• Completion of an FDA audit of HTPN083 with no findings, a phenomenal result. Fenway Health was the only site in New England to enroll participants in this trial for injectable Cabotegravir, a long-acting PrEP.
• A PrEP for Health study, carried out in the context of two community-based syringe service programs in Massachusetts, that uses a health navigator-based strategy and motivational interviewing to increase PrEP uptake and adherence among people who inject drugs, a population at high risk for HIV, in collaboration with Fenway Health’s Drug User Health program.

And finally, congratulations to several of our faculty and staff on receiving awards and fellowships, being appointed to committees, or finishing educational or training programs!

• • Ken Mayer received the 2021 NIH Sexual and Gender Minority Distinguished Investigator Award.
  • Jenny Potter received the 2021 Massachusetts Medical Society LGBTQ Health Award and was also named in Boston Magazine as one of their Top Doctors 2022.
  • Abby Batchelder received Massachusetts General Hospital’s 2021 Claflin Distinguished Scholar Award. Abby was also promoted to Assistant Director of Behavioral Medicine Program for Stigma and Substance Use Research at MGH.
  • JoJo Castellanos completed Fenway Health’s Activist Academy and helped organize a virtual Lobby Day to support the Healthy Youth Act (HD 3454 /SD 2178). If passed the Healthy Youth Act would ensure that sex ed in schools is LGBTQ+ affirming, provides resources for LGBTQ+ students, teaches about consent, healthy relationships, and dating violence prevention.  Genesis Valera, of the Epidemiology team, also served as a panelist and shared her powerful experiences. The virtual Lobby Day had 200+ community stakeholders and attendees to help push the legislation forward. 
  • Whitney Crebase received her Masters in Public Health degree from Boston University.
  • Alex Keuroghlian was appointed chair of the National Association of Community Health Center (NACHC)’s Committee on Health Center Excellence and Training.
  • Dana Pardee received his Masters in Business Administration degree from Boston University and was promoted to become Fenway’s Organizational Learning & Development Specialist.