NURS FPX 6026 Assessment 3 Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy

Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy

Student name

Capella University

NURS-FPX6026

Professor Name

Submission Date

December 01, 2025,
Carol A. Ford, MD, Editor-in-Chief

Journal of Adolescent Health
Subject: Advocacy for the Issue of Gender Affirmation among Transgender and Gender-Diverse (TGD) Teens

Dear Editor,

I am writing to address the concerns regarding the need for a biopsychosocial health policy to address gender affirmation challenges for TGD adolescents. The article by Olsavsky et al. (2023) demonstrates that the mental health of transgender and gender-diverse adolescents improved with the addition of gender-affirming hormonal interventions and social supports. This concurs with other developing research, which demonstrates a decrease in depression, anxiety, and suicidality when youth receive earlier and organized gender-affirming care (Tordoff et al., 2022). These inequities in care create poor health outcomes for the TGD population.

With all of these conditions combined, the rationale is clear for providing health system-level policy changes. Gender-affirming services have a direct relationship to service availability and population health outcomes and significant evidence supports this (Gillani et al., 2025). Improving health inequities of gender-affirming care will require an overarching system-level policy to improve access to clinical services for the controlled use of puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones as well as the addition of mental health and social services.

Policies may support and be packaged together with EHR prompts, telehealth, confidentiality, and insurance innovations that help to reduce and improve barriers to care and evidence-based practice. Interdisciplinary collaboration is required to effectively enforce these policies. Gender-affirming care is an interdisciplinary area, and pediatric providers, mental-health professionals, nurses, pharmacists, and social workers contribute to the care of youth at every stage of the process.

Telehealth is used by TGD youth, indicating that care should be provided in collaboration with specialty clinics, community-based primary care, and school-based clinics, and community health centers (Kahn et al., 2023). If these policies are enacted in a range of care settings, this would improve the care of TGD youth, reduce waiting times, reduce geographic barriers to care, reduce mental-health risks, and improve the overall mental health and well-being of TGD youth.

Considering the barriers faced by TGD youth and the increased mental health risks, there is a necessity to create a policy that is evidence-based. From studies such as Olsavsky et al. (2023), health systems can implement gender-affirming care that is a sustained and protective practice. Policy is one of the most crucial means of increasing the overall health of the population.

Best regards,

Sameul Mbazor