They could have saved money and watched reruns of Rosie on the View

Via WFB

American taxpayers are paying over $52,000 to study 16 LGBT individuals who have schizophrenia in Toronto, Canada.

The research project, “Defining Community for LGBT People with Schizophrenia,” will follow the lives of a handful of lesbian, gay, and transgender individuals for one year to study the societal “barriers” of this group.

“Sexual and gender minority individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) are amongst the most marginalized individuals in North American society,” the grant, which was awarded last August, said. “They face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that compound the effects of having a major mental illness, hampering recovery and frustrating efforts to meaningfully participate in our communities.”

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in Toronto, will conduct the study, which will cost $52,773 in its first year. The project lists an end date of July 2015.

Dr. Sean Kidd, head of Canada’s Psychology Service in the Center for Addiction and Mental Health’s Schizophrenia Program, will lead the project.

“Complementing a study of community participation amongst an ethnoracially diverse group of individuals with schizophrenia in Toronto, Ontario, this project will involve the development of a new arm of the study that would focus specifically on lesbian, gay, and transgender individuals with schizophrenia,” the grant explains.

The researchers will examine the community “experiences” of 16 gay Toronto schizophrenics three times a year, using interviews with family members and “convenience store clerks” with whom the individuals interact with on a regular basis.

“Using interviews, ethnographic observation, and the creation of maps to geographically locate places of risk and resource, we will examine the physical, social, psychological, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of community participation,” the grant said.