Michael B. Clark
HealthRight International and Refugee Coalition of East Africa
New York, USA & Nairobi, Kenya.
Hello! My name is Michael and I’m just finishing my first year towards a master’s in public health at NYU’s College of Global Public Health, with a concentration in social and behavioral health. My primary research interest relates the health impacts of stigma, particularly among LGBTQI migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in East Africa.
For the last year, I’ve been an intern at HealthRight International, a global health and human rights organization that works to empower marginalized communities to live healthy lives. While there, I’ve been developing a strategy to improve LGBTQI health in sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on mental health and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. With HealthRight, I hope to continue that work interfacing directly with local health providers to explore how we can strengthen health systems for the LGBTQI community in the region.
But the other half of my project will be working directly with the LGBTQI refugee community in Nairobi, a topic I will explain in more detail in my next blog post. Through the Refugee Coalition of East Africa, I plan to do some assessments of mental health and HIV medication adherence. Although medication for HIV is universally available in Kenya, those most vulnerable (gay men, transgender women, sex workers) frequently do not adhere to their treatment regimen. Sadly, people are still getting sick, and several refugees have died in the past year. So, I’m going to try to determine what factors are contributing to this, and how those issues can be resolved.
This is a community that I am passionate about and have been actively working with for the last several years. Their resilience inspires me and it is always evolving but always in crisis. A big challenge will be working with community leaders to develop a plan to think beyond the needs for tomorrow, and to think about how to better provide for LGBTQI refugees while they await resettlement.
You can find out more about the Refugee Coalition here: