Black Women's Health Imperative

Last updated
Black Women's Health Imperative
Formation1984;40 years ago (1984)
Region
United States
Website Official website OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Black Women's Health Imperative, previously the National Black Women's Health Project, was formed in 1983 in Atlanta, Georgia out of a need to address the health and reproductive rights of African American women. NBWHP was principally founded by Byllye Avery. Avery was involved in reproductive healthcare work in Gainesville, Florida in the 1970s and was particularly influenced by the impact that policy had on women of color and poor women. Additionally Avery was also concerned with healthcare choices and wanted "to provide an environment where women could feel comfortable and take control of their own health" (Silliman et al., 66).

Contents

Lillie Allen, a healthcare educator, (who is not formally listed on the organization's website but is cited in other sources) was primarily concerned with birthing choices of African Americans as well as internalized racism within the community. Both women worked with the National Women's Health Network and started the project within the organization.

Eventually they extracted "The Project" from the NWHN because of concern regarding the lack of focus on the issues facing black women and poor women which played out through the events that occurred during and the National Conference on Black Women's Health Issues at Spelman College in 1983 (Silliman et al., 69). Because of the two main focuses on self-help and the medical establishment as an institution, the NBWHP ebb and flows between a grassroots operation that focuses on the community of women and one that focused on policy. By 1987, the National Black Women's Health Project were headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and housed offices in Brooklyn, New York and the Bay Area of California. The New York City office was directed by Gwen Braxton. The National Black Women's Health Project later opened an office in Washington, DC to address policy issues and moved their headquarters to Washington, DC. NBWHP has changed their name to the Black Women's Health Imperative.

US Health Statistics

“What causes all this sickness?” [Byllye Avery] asked. “Like cardiovascular disease—it’s the number one killer [of Black women]. What causes all that heart pain?” She answered herself by linking the physical maladies of Black women to the male violence that kept them in a lifelong state of emotional distress. “When sisters take their shoes off and start talking about what’s happening, the first thing we cry about is violence,” she explained. “The number one issue for most of our sisters is violence—battering, sexual abuse. Same thing for their daughters, whether they are twelve or four” [1]

African American women's health in the US is continuously shown to be far worse than that of any other group of women in any other racial or ethnic group. Currently, African American women have higher rates of morbidity regarding health issues like obesity, diabetes, and adverse birth outcomes. [2] African American women are also more likely to die from certain cancers, cardiovascular disease and HIV/AIDS. [3] There are many different factors intertwined within our society that contribute to these health disparities, many of which reflect on the effects of experienced racism on day to day lives. [4]

Some factors that contribute to the health disparities within the community of African American women in the US are related to one’s sociodemographic status, sexual orientation, geographic location and age. [5] Research has shown that income and higher education are strongly correlated to one’s overall health, along with showing that African American women who make a higher income experience improved cardiovascular health. Education has also been found to be strongly correlated with improved health outcomes within African American women. [6] This reflects the idea that there are three levels of racism that continue to affect one’s physical health. These levels consist of institutionalized racism, personally mediated racism, and internalized racism. [7] These levels of racism have a direct contribution to women's health, as it was found that foreign-born mothers were more likely to be older, married, and better educated. Foreign born women were also shown to have better pre-pregnancy weight along with having higher rates of prenatal care than those born in the US. It was also found that foreign born mothers were less likely to give birth prematurely. [8]

Many of these health issues stem from the fact that African American women are less likely than a white woman to receive many of the needed health services, including routine preventative care. [9] In the past five decades, African American women have experienced a risk that is 4-times greater regarding death from pregnancy complications than a white woman. [10] Four out of five African American women are considered to be overweight or obese. [11] One in four African American women aged 55 and up are affected by diabetes, making them almost 2 times more likely to have diabetes than white women. [12] It was also discovered that statistically white women reported receiving more prenatal advice on alcohol, smoking and the importance of breast-feeding than African American women. [13] African American women were also found to be 23 times more likely to die from preexisting health issues like preeclampsia, eclampsia, abruptio placentae, placenta previa, and postpartum hemorrhage than white women. [14] African American women reportedly have significantly less trust in their own physicians due to past experiences in our health-care system. [15] It was also shown that African American women have higher levels of trust in informal health informational sources, some which may not be factually based. [16]

Aims

The project's five Health Imperatives for Black Women are:

Contributions

National Black Women's Health Project initiated projects that were geared towards the totality of women's health in addition to reproductive healthcare. The projects included "Walking for Wellness [that featured]…Wilma Rudolph, to encourage African American women to improve their health through exercise" (Silliman et al., 77). Additional programs included education about birth control options as well as a video to encourage women to look at their vaginas through self-exam. On their website there are resources regarding healthcare issues as well choices. The NBWHP publish the book, Body and Soul: A Black Women's Guide to Health and Well-Being by Linda Villarosa and Our Bodies, Our Voice, Our Choices which serves as "a black women's primer on reproductive health and rights" (Silliman et al., 78).

Controversies

During the 1992 March for Women's Lives, there was conflict in the planning of the march between NOW and smaller feminist groups of color. The protest was headed by Byllye Avery because of the continuation of issues concerning race and representation. While organizations eventually were asked to speak many stood in solidarity with Avery because "she was the first woman of color to come forward publicly and nationally for reproductive rights" (Suh 89).

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maternal death</span> Aspect of human reproduction and medicine

Maternal death or maternal mortality is defined in slightly different ways by several different health organizations. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines maternal death as the death of a pregnant mother due to complications related to pregnancy, underlying conditions worsened by the pregnancy or management of these conditions. This can occur either while she is pregnant or within six weeks of resolution of the pregnancy. The CDC definition of pregnancy-related deaths extends the period of consideration to include one year from the resolution of the pregnancy. Pregnancy associated death, as defined by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), are all deaths occurring within one year of a pregnancy resolution. Identification of pregnancy associated deaths is important for deciding whether or not the pregnancy was a direct or indirect contributing cause of the death.

Health equity arises from access to the social determinants of health, specifically from wealth, power and prestige. Individuals who have consistently been deprived of these three determinants are significantly disadvantaged from health inequities, and face worse health outcomes than those who are able to access certain resources. It is not equity to simply provide every individual with the same resources; that would be equality. In order to achieve health equity, resources must be allocated based on an individual need-based principle.

Byllye Yvonne Avery is an American health care activist. A proponent of reproductive justice, Avery has worked to develop healthcare services and education that address black women's mental and physical health stressors. She is best known as the founder of the National Black Women's Health Project, the first national organization to specialize in Black women's reproductive health issues. For her work with the NBWHP, she has received the MacArthur Foundation's Fellowship for Social Contribution and the Gustav O. Lienhard Award for the Advancement of Health Care from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, among other awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Roberts</span> American sociologist, law professor, and social justice advocate

Dorothy E. Roberts is an American sociologist, law professor, and social justice advocate. She is the Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, George A. Weiss University Professor, and inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania. She writes and lectures on gender, race, and class in legal issues. Her focuses include reproductive health, child welfare, and bioethics. In 2023, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. She has published over 80 articles and essays in books and scholarly journals, including Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Stanford Law Review.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reproductive justice</span> Social justice movement

Reproductive justice is a critical feminist framework that was invented as a response to United States reproductive politics. The three core values of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the right to parent a child or children in safe and healthy environments. The framework moves women's reproductive rights past a legal and political debate to incorporate the economic, social, and health factors that impact women's reproductive choices and decision-making ability.

Various issues in medicine relate to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. According to the US Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), besides HIV/AIDS, issues related to LGBT health include breast and cervical cancer, hepatitis, mental health, substance use disorders, alcohol use, tobacco use, depression, access to care for transgender persons, issues surrounding marriage and family recognition, conversion therapy, refusal clause legislation, and laws that are intended to "immunize health care professionals from liability for discriminating against persons of whom they disapprove."

Research shows many health disparities among different racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Different outcomes in mental and physical health exist between all U.S. Census-recognized racial groups, but these differences stem from different historical and current factors, including genetics, socioeconomic factors, and racism. Research has demonstrated that numerous health care professionals show implicit bias in the way that they treat patients. Certain diseases have a higher prevalence among specific racial groups, and life expectancy also varies across groups.

African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom was an American-based reproductive rights organization that formed in 1990. The organization developed as a way for African American women to show support for "Jane Roe" in Roe v. Wade. Faye Wattleton was one of the first major supporters of the organization.

Women's reproductive health in the United States refers to the set of physical, mental, and social issues related to the health of women in the United States. It includes the rights of women in the United States to adequate sexual health, available contraception methods, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. The prevalence of women's health issues in American culture is inspired by second-wave feminism in the United States. As a result of this movement, women of the United States began to question the largely male-dominated health care system and demanded a right to information on issues regarding their physiology and anatomy. The U.S. government has made significant strides to propose solutions, like creating the Women's Health Initiative through the Office of Research on Women's Health in 1991. However, many issues still exist related to the accessibility of reproductive healthcare as well as the stigma and controversy attached to sexual health, contraception, and sexually transmitted diseases.

African Americans', or Black Americans', access and use of birth control are central to many social, political, cultural and economic issues in the United States. Birth control policies in place during American slavery and the Jim Crow era highly influenced Black attitudes toward reproductive management methods. Other factors include African-American attitudes towards family, sex and reproduction, religious views, social support structures, black culture, and movements towards bodily autonomy.

Thomas A. LaVeist is the dean and Weatherhead Presidential Chair at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was previously the chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the George Washington University, Milken Institute School of Public Health. He focuses mainly on the development of policy and interventions to address race disparities in the health field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loretta Ross</span> American activist and writer (born 1953)

Loretta J. Ross is an American academic, feminist, and activist who advocates for reproductive justice, especially among women of color. As an activist, Ross has written on reproductive justice activism and the history of African American women.

Arline Geronimus wrote about the weathering hypothesis the early 1990s to account for health disparities of newborn babies and birth mothers due to decades and generations of racism and social, economic, and political oppression. It is well documented that people of color and other marginalized communities have worse health outcomes than white people. This is due to multiple stressors including prejudice, social alienation, institutional bias, political oppression, economic exclusion, and racial discrimination. The weathering hypothesis proposes that the cumulative burden of these stressors as individuals age is "weathering", and the increased weathering experienced by minority groups compared to others can account for differences in health outcomes. In recent years, social scientists investigated the biological plausibility of the weathering hypothesis in studies evaluating the physiological effects of social, environmental and political stressors among marginalized communities. The weathering hypothesis is more widely accepted as a framework for explaining health disparities on the basis of differential exposure to racially based stressors. Researchers have also identified patterns connecting weathering to biological phenomena associated with stress and aging, such as allostatic load, epigenetics, telomere shortening, and accelerated brain aging.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry M. McGovern</span> American public health official and scholar

Terry M. McGovern is an American public health scholar. She is the Senior Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs at CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy in New York City. McGovern is also Professor of Health Policy and Management.

The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, also known as SisterSong, is a national activist organization dedicated to reproductive justice for women of color.

Monica Rose McLemore is an American nurse who is an associate professor of Family Health Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. Her work considers reproductive justice and medical care for marginalised communities, with an overarching aim to eliminate healthcare inequalities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, McLemore studied the impact of coronavirus disease during pregnancy.

Collins O. Airhihenbuwa is a Beninese public health researcher. He is Director of the Global Research Against Non-communicable Disease (GRAND) Initiative and Professor of Health Management & Policy at Georgia State University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rachel Hardeman</span> American public health academic

Rachel Renee Hardeman is an American public health academic who is associate professor of Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She holds the inaugural Blue Cross Endowed Professorship in Health and Racial Equity. Her research considers how racism impacts health outcomes, particularly for the maternal health of African-Americans.

Black maternal mortality in the United States refers to the death of women, specifically those who identify as Black or African American, during or after child delivery. In general, maternal death can be due to a myriad of factors, such as the nature of the pregnancy or the delivery itself, but is not associated with unintentional or secondary causes. In the United States, around 700 women die from pregnancy-related illnesses or complications per year. This number does not include the approximately 50,000 women who experience life-threatening complications during childbirth, resulting in lifelong disabilities and complications. However, there are stark differences in maternal mortality rates for Black American women versus Indigenous American, Alaska Native, and White American women.

Medical racism in the United States encompasses discriminatory and targeted medical practices and misrepresentations in medical teachings driven by biases based on characteristics of patients' race and ethnicity. In American history, it has impacted various racial and ethnic groups and affected their health outcomes. Vulnerable subgroups within these racial and ethnic groups such as women, children and the poor have been especially endangered over the years. An ongoing phenomenon since at least the 18th century in the United States, medical racism has been evident on a widespread basis through various unethical studies, forced procedures, and differential treatments administered by health care providers, researchers, and even sometimes government entities. Whether medical racism is always caused by explicitly prejudiced beliefs about patients based on race or by unconscious bias is not widely agreed upon.

References

  1. ↑ Wiesner, Caitlin Reed (2022). ""The First Thing We Cry About is Violence": The National Black Women's Health Project and the Fight Against Rape and Battering". Journal of Women's History. 34 (1): 71–92. doi:10.1353/jowh.2022.0001. ISSN   1527-2036. Archived from the original on 2023-03-19. Retrieved 2023-07-12.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  2. ↑ "Penn State WebAccess Secure Login". webaccess.psu.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  3. ↑ "Penn State WebAccess Secure Login". webaccess.psu.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  4. ↑ Pittman, Chavella T. (2012). "Racial Microaggressions: The Narratives of African American Faculty at a Predominantly White University". The Journal of Negro Education. 81 (1): 82–92. doi:10.7709/jnegroeducation.81.1.0082. ISSN   0022-2984. JSTOR   10.7709/jnegroeducation.81.1.0082. S2CID   142963468.
  5. ↑ "Penn State WebAccess Secure Login". webaccess.psu.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  6. ↑ "Penn State WebAccess Secure Login". webaccess.psu.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  7. ↑ Cabral, H; Fried, L E; Levenson, S; Amaro, H; Zuckerman, B (January 1990). "Foreign-born and US-born black women: differences in health behaviors and birth outcomes". American Journal of Public Health. 80 (1): 70–72. doi:10.2105/AJPH.80.1.70. ISSN   0090-0036. PMC   1404553 . PMID   2293806.
  8. ↑ Cabral, H; Fried, L E; Levenson, S; Amaro, H; Zuckerman, B (January 1990). "Foreign-born and US-born black women: differences in health behaviors and birth outcomes". American Journal of Public Health. 80 (1): 70–72. doi:10.2105/AJPH.80.1.70. ISSN   0090-0036. PMC   1404553 . PMID   2293806.
  9. ↑ "Penn State WebAccess Secure Login". webaccess.psu.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  10. ↑ Guerra, Maria. "Fact Sheet: The State of African American Women in the United States". Center for American Progress. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  11. ↑ Guerra, Maria. "Fact Sheet: The State of African American Women in the United States". Center for American Progress. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  12. ↑ Guerra, Maria. "Fact Sheet: The State of African American Women in the United States". Center for American Progress. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  13. ↑ "Penn State WebAccess Secure Login". webaccess.psu.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  14. ↑ Tucker, Myra J.; Berg, Cynthia J.; Callaghan, William M.; Hsia, Jason (February 2007). "The Black–White Disparity in Pregnancy-Related Mortality From 5 Conditions: Differences in Prevalence and Case-Fatality Rates". American Journal of Public Health. 97 (2): 247–251. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2005.072975. ISSN   0090-0036. PMC   1781382 . PMID   17194867.
  15. ↑ "Penn State WebAccess Secure Login". webaccess.psu.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  16. ↑ "Penn State WebAccess Secure Login". webaccess.psu.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.