Scholar Jamie Weinand Conducting Research Study on the Effects of Chest...

Point Foundation has a great commitment to community service, and as a current Point Scholar I have been working on my community service project (CSP) this year with a student research group here at the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM). Over the course of the last year, we have come together to form the Binding Health Project, which is a group of four students - myself, Ivy, a fellow medical student, and Kimberylnn and Alix, two students at the school of public health. We are incredibly excited about our project and wanted to share a bit more about what we are doing!

Note: For those readers unfamiliar with the practice of chest binding, "binding" in this article refers to any practice that involves the compression of chest tissue among female assigned at birth (FAAB) and intersex individuals. It is sometimes associated with individuals who identify as female-to-male (FTM) transgender, however in reality it is a practice that is more widely present among individual of many different gender identities who choose to chest bind for a variety of reasons. For more information about different kinds of chest binding, you can check out AudoStraddle's recent post on "Binding 101" - and a big thank you to Audostraddle for the shout-out to the Binding Health Project in this article!

The Binding Health Project seeks to expand and contribute new information on the physical and mental health effects of chest binding. Within the context of this study, binding refers to the process in which an individual compresses or binds the chest, often for extended periods of time. While this process provides the person with a number of benefits, the long term physical health effects of binding have not yet been studied. This survey is designed to gather information on these effects through questions that are both quantitative and qualitative in nature. It is intended for female-assigned-at-birth (FAAB) and intersex folks 18 years and over that have bound or currently bind their chests. It is the aim of the Binding Health Project to provide individuals, communities, and health care providers with information to promote the health of those who bind.

Our goal is to use the results from this survey to advocate for the health of persons who chest bind. We hope to build a knowledge base that currently does not exist for people who bind, their providers, and the communities that support them. Thank you in advance to anyone who might be able to take our survey, and please feel free to distribute widely! We truly appreciate your time in helping us to better address the health topics that impact individuals who bind.

Please click here to take our survey. You can also follow the Binding Health Project at on Twitter and Tumblr, or learn more about our project on our website.

If you have questions about this research study, please contact Kimberlynn, Alix, Ivy, and Megan at bubindingproject@gmail.com. If you have questions about your rights as a research subject please contact the Boston University Institutional Review Board at 617-638-7207 or medirb@bu.edu.

This post was written by Rosen Goertz Point Scholar Jamie Weinand
	Jamie is excited to pursue his dream to advocate for marginalized communities as a pro-bono physician, particularly for LGBTQ individuals, people of color, women, international and Spanish-speaking patients, and to advocate for these communities nationally, internationally, within the clinic, and on a policy level.  Learn more about Jamie.