Black Women's Health and Well-Being

The Better Life Lab’s narrative, culture change, gender equity, and work-family justice missions include interrogating the state of Black women’s health and well-being. It also involves our Mission: Visible special project, linked below, on the challenges Black birthing people face and how this can complicate the decision to try to have a child or start a family.

The systemic conditions that prevent Black women from being able to take proper care of themselves are one of our nation’s most significant health injustices. Black women experience an array of adverse health outcomes due to sociopolitical conditions that were first created during enslavement. The harm Black women experienced while enslaved—such as having their bodies experimented on violently and being forced to bear children— has continued to manifest in American policy.

Today, the legacy of enslavement on Black women’s economic security, health, and care manifests as:

• Black women who work full-time earn 67 cents to the dollar earned by white men who work full-time. Black women earn just 64 cents to the dollar for all white male earners, including part-time and seasonal workers.
• Black women participate in the labor force at higher rates than women of other racial or ethnic backgrounds, yet experience higher unemployment and poverty rates than the national average for women. They’re also more likely to be the head of household, meaning they care for their dependents with fewer resources. We see this play out with rising childcare costs, and any potential job disruptions due to lack of childcare, which are a more considerable burden on Black families, particularly Black mothers.
• Compared with their white counterparts, Black women have a shorter life expectancy, a higher maternal mortality rate, and a higher disease burden—which refers to the physical and financial impact of certain diseases on specific populations. This includes being disproportionately likely to die from breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, stroke, and police violence—which can lead to increased preterm births of Black babies, another complicated health issue.
• Black women and children who live in segregated neighborhoods experience significant differences in employment and education attainment and limited access to a wealth of resources that could help lift them out of poverty.
• Black women spend more time fighting for dignity in workplace policies and for their bodies due to a lack of adequate family-supportive policies, which often move in tandem with decreased reproductive rights in many states.
• The Strong Black Woman schema continues to demand that Black women swallow their pain for the greater good of others, and it comes with grave psychological consequences.

Surviving in a profoundly racist society damages Black women physiologically, a process known as “weathering.” The term, coined by public health researcher Arline Geronimus, defines this as chronic stress that "literally wears down your heart, your arteries, your neuroendocrine systems, ... all your body systems so that in effect, you become chronologically old at a young age."

Chronic stress can increase susceptibility to depression, anxiety, and feelings of isolation. It can cause headaches, chest pain, fatigue, and stomach issues. Heightened stress levels can make sleeping impossible—a requirement for quality health and well-being that is, sadly, already limited for many Black women. Stress can lead to high blood pressure, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, Type 2 diabetes, or memory loss—adverse health outcomes that Black people are disproportionately likely to experience compared to white Americans.

Our focus is on driving progress for Black women and their families by improving depictions of people's whole lives as they relate to work and family; narratives about health, well-being, gender, work, family, and the value of care; busting myths about individual grit as the key to overcoming systemic racism; and showing how public systems can advance work-family justice and more significant gender, racial, and economic equity. It is also crucial to our mission to give these issues a face and discuss the impact they have on real people.

We are available for presentations, 1:1 brainstorming sessions, briefings, research, news stories, and more. We want to amplify narratives that accurately represent the threats to Black women’s well-being and help illustrate and highlight potential solutions. Contact Julia Craven at craven@newamerica.org to learn more or set up a meeting.