PURPOSE:​

Unite with diverse leaders and individual members of social, professional, legislative, corporate, educational, community and faith-based institutions and organizations to strategically improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities and inequities of African American women, women of color and their family members, friends and neighbors through advocacy, education, research and support activities, programs and services.

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GOALS:​

• To unite and mobilize diverse leaders to develop, integrate, and expand health awareness activities and/or policy changes within their organizations that benefit employees, constituents, clients, patients, congregational members, and the community at large.
   

• To increase the awareness and knowledge of diverse leaders of health strategies that improve health outcomes and reduces health disparities for African-American women, women of color, and their family members, friends, and neighbors.
   

• To increase knowledge and awareness in the areas of weight reduction, stress, depression, mental health, and cardiovascular disease of 3,500 African-American and women of color, teen girl their family members, friends, and neighbors.
   

• To leverage existing and establish new partnerships and collaborations with community and churches, health and human service providers, research, education and governmental entities at the local, state and federal levels.
   

  1. To increase knowledge and awareness of Social Determinants of Health - Lack of equality that exists when members of certain population groups do not benefit from the same health status as other groups, specifically, Poverty, Unemployment, Education, Environment and Racism. . Social determinants of health are shaped by the distribution of money, power, and resources throughout local communities, nations, and the world

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Health Disparities

Women of color are disproportionately affected by numerous health conditions and have higher mortality and morbidity rates. The following are some of the most prevalent: obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular/heart, breast, kidney, infant and maternal mortality, and mental health conditions.

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OBESITY: The Gateway Disease

Obesity opens the door to many secondary conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer, kidney disease, and mental health disorders; for this reason, it is known as “the gateway disease.”

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Diabetes:

Many of the risk factors that can lead to developing Type 2 diabetes are common among Black women, including being overweight or obese, having high blood pressure and high cholesterol and lack of physical activity.

• Approximately 4.9 million African Americans over 20 years of age are living with either diagnosed or undiagnosed diabetes.One out of every four African American women 55 and older are diagnosed with diabetes.African Americans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with diabetes as Caucasians. Diabetes is also more prevalent among Black women than other ethnic groups.

 

 

Cardiovascular Disease:

Cardiovascular diseases kill nearly 50,000 African-American women annually. Only 36 percent of African-American women know that heart disease is their greatest health risk.

 

• Cardiovascular Disease accounts for about one-third of the disparity in potential life-years lost between blacks and whites. 

• Non-Hispanic blacks women have a higher rate of obesity, a risk factor for Cardiovascular Disease than non-Hispanic white women.Blacks and African Americans suffer from kidney failure at a significantly higher rate than Caucasians - more than 3 times higher. 

• African Americans are almost four times as likely as Whites to develop kidney failure. 

• Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure in African Americans.

• African Americans constitute more than 35% of all patients in the U.S. receiving dialysis for kidney failure, but only represent 13.2% of the overall U.S. population. 
  
   

Breast Cancer:

According to Dr. Adrienne Phillips of New York Presbyterian Hospital, “The reasons why black women are more likely to die [from breast cancer than other groups] are very complex, an interplay between genetics, biology, and environment.” There is an urgent need for black women to participate in clinical trial studies to increase  medications that are effective in this population group.

 

• Black women have a 1 in 9 chance of developing breast cancer. As for white women, the odds are 1 in 8, according to the American Cancer Society. < >Black women are more likely to die from the disease: White women's probability of dying from breast cancer is 1 in 37, while black women's is 1 in 31. < >Black women are more likely to get triple-negative breast cancer—a particularly aggressive form of the disease—than women of other races.  

 

 

Mental Health:

Black women are especially vulnerable to wrestling with their mental health, consistently reporting higher feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and worthlessness.

 

• Older African American women may be at particularly high risk for developing a mental illness due to disability from chronic medical conditions, caregiver strain, social isolation, bereavement, exposure to traumatic events (elder abuse, violence, living in crime-ridden neighborhoods), and poor access to health care. 

• Overall, black women are 10 percent more likely to report experiencing serious psychological distress than white women, according to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. 

• According to the Office of Minority Health, these combined these factors resulted in 9.4 percent of black adults getting mental health treatment or some form of counseling in 2014 versus 18.8 percent of white people age 18 and older

 

Reproductive Health – Maternal Mortality

Over the last fifty years, African American women have died in pregnancy or childbirth at a rate of three to four times the rate of white women.

 

• Low-income Latinas are nearly twice as likely as low-income white women to have an unintended pregnancy.  Almost half of all unintended pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion;  

• African American women are three times more likely than white women to experience an unintended pregnancy. Unfortunately, African American women are also three times more likely than white women to obtain abortion services.  Black women are three times more likely to have fibroids (benign tumors that grow in the uterus and can cause postpartum hemorrhaging) than white women, and the fibroids occur at younger ages and grow more quickly for Black women. 

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Reference List

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https://www.worldkidneyday.org/faqs/kidney-disease-women/

https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/kidney-disease/race-ethnicity

https://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/factsheets/African-Americans-and-CKD

https://www.self.com/story/black-women-health-conditions

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2854624/

https://www.reproductiverights.org/node/861

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African Americans and Kidney Disease. (2018, February 16). Retrieved March 13, 2019, from https://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/factsheets/African-Americans-and-CKD

 

American Heart Association. (2009). Facts, Bridging the Gap, CVD Health Disparities. [pdf file]. Retrieved from: https://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@hcm/@ml/documents/downloadable/ucm_429240.pdf

 

Barnes, Z. (n.d.). 8 Health Conditions That Disproportionately Affect Black Women. Retrieved March 13, 2019, from https://www.self.com/story/black-women-health-conditions

 

Irimia R, Gottschling M (2016) Taxonomic revision of Rochefortia Sw. (Ehretiaceae, Boraginales). Biodiversity Data Journal 4: E7720. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.4.e7720. (2016). Addressing Disparities in Reproductive and Sexual Health Care in the U.S. doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f

 

Kidney Disease & Women. (n.d.). Retrieved March 13, 2019, from https://www.worldkidneyday.org/faqs/kidney-disease-women/

 

Race, Ethnicity, & Kidney Disease. (2014, March 01). Retrieved March 13, 2019, from https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/kidney-disease/race-ethnicity

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http://www.blackwomenshealth.org/issues-and-resources/black-women-diabetes-more-than-a-little-sugar/_print_y.html

 

https://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@hcm/@ml/documents/downloadable/ucm_429240.pdf

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