The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Departments of Gender, Rights and Equity – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (GRE-DEI), Global HIV, Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections Programmes (HHS), and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research (SRH) are developing a guideline on the health of trans and gender diverse people.
The WHO said this new guideline will provide evidence and implementation guidance on health sector interventions aimed at increasing access and utilization of quality and respectful health services by trans and gender-diverse people.
The guideline will focus on 5 areas: provision of gender-affirming care, including hormones; health workers’ education and training for the provision of gender-inclusive care; provision of health care for trans and gender-diverse people who suffered interpersonal violence based on their needs; health policies that support gender-inclusive care, and legal recognition of self-determined gender identity.
Following WHO guidance for guideline development a guideline development group (GDG) will be composed of members from all WHO regions acting in their individual capacity (not representing any organization with which they are affiliated). The members of the GDG are not commissioned and do not receive any financial compensation. Members of the GDG for this guideline were chosen by WHO technical staff among researchers with relevant technical expertise, among end-users (programme managers and health workers) and among representatives of trans and gender-diverse community organisations.
The GDG will meet from 19 to 21 February 2024 at WHO’s headquarters in Geneva to:
- examine the grading of recommendations assessment, development and evaluation (GRADE) evidence profiles or other assessments of the quality of the evidence used to inform the recommendations on the 5 above-mentioned areas;
- interpret the evidence, with explicit consideration of the overall balance of benefits and harms;
- formulate recommendations, taking into account benefits, harms, values and preferences, feasibility, equity, acceptability, resource requirements and other factors, as appropriate; and
- suggest implementation considerations and highlight research gaps for the guidelines.
In line with WHO policy on conflict of interest, members of the public and interested organizations can access the biographies of the GDG members for this guideline and inform WHO of their views about them. The list comprises 21 members. All comments should be sent by email to hiv-aids@who.int by 8 January 2024. (NewsWire)