Amy Hequembourg, PhD

Associate Professor

Amy Hequembourg.

ADDRESS:
School of Nursing
University at Buffalo
209 Wende Hall
Buffalo, NY 14214-3079

PHONE: 716-829-2608

My research and much of my professional service is aimed at addressing health disparities affecting sexual minorities. By seeking an understanding of the mechanisms fueling this public health crisis, my research aims to inform effective interventions that will improve the health and well-being of sexual minorities.

Amy Hequembourg is an associate professor for the School of Nursing and has devoted her research to understanding and dismantling health disparities among sexual minorities (i.e., gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals). This wide range of individuals suffer from a variety of significant health disparities, including higher rates of substance use disorders, tobacco use, mental health symptoms, trauma symptoms, lifetime sexual victimization, and some forms of cancer. Sexual minorities also report barriers to health care that result in lower health care utilization.

To this end, the bulk of her research is focused on understanding why sexual minorities experience higher rates of adverse health outcomes, elevated rates of health risk behaviors associated with those outcomes (e.g., heavy alcohol use, cigarette smoking), and a higher prevalence of other stressful and traumatic life experiences (e.g., sexual assault, discrimination and microaggressions) compared to heterosexual individuals.

Her current scholarly activities in these areas include a number of ongoing funded projects that have the shared goal of understanding the nature of unique health disparities and risky health behaviors among sexual minorities.

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