The Honor Project Overview

The HONOR Project is dedicated to testing an ‘Indigenist’ Stress-Coping Model of the relationships among trauma, coping, and health in urban gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender, and Two-Spirit Native Americans and Alaska Natives. We are particularly interested in exploring how Native culture, spirituality, and traditions decrease Two-Spirit Natives alcohol use, HIV risk behaviors, and mental health problems.

The Honor Project began in 2003 with a qualitative study. This helped us to identify emergent themes regarding stressors and coping strategies specific to Two-Spirits and were employed in the design of phase II of the study. Phase II which is currently under way will use semi-structured interviews to survey 400 urban Two-Spirit Native Americans and Alaska Natives about issues of trauma, health and mental health, cultural and spiritual coping, HIV risk behaviors, and alcohol and other drugs in six geographic areas of the United States.