ALLENTOWN, Pa. - An uptick in communicable diseases has prompted the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center to release the Pride Guide to Public Health.
Organizers say it's an effort to educate the community on how to better protect themselves. The guide contains information on syphilis, COVID-19 and monkeypox.
Chrystina Obleschuk, health equity programs manager at Bradbury-Sullivan, says local and state health leaders called on the organization to assemble the Pride Guide.
“We wanted to create this guide that would provide information on all of that, and then also give people information on what they can do about all these diseases, so they didn't just hear about it in the news and not know how to handle what was going on,” Obleschuk said.
Although monkeypox has not yet been reported in the Lehigh Valley, Obleschuk said, the center wanted to address the disease and note that it does not just impact the LGBTQ-plus community.
The guide can be found on the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center website.
People with signs or symptoms of any of the diseases should get tested right away, according to Obleschuk.
Bradbury-Sullivan offers free STD testing every first and third Tuesday of the month.
