Black Women's Health

In this special issue, top researchers from a diversity of disciplines provide an overview of and insights into the major social, cultural, and structural variables that play a role in Black women's poor health, and differential morbidity and mortality. The articles focus on the major threats to Black women's health such as diabetes, obesity, cancer, violence, and AIDS, and utilize a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods from medicine, psychology, sociology, and feminist analysis. Among the articles are:

* An examination of the role of Black women's cultural and ethnomedical beliefs in their use of cancer screening by Laurie Hoffman-Goetz and Sherry Mills of the National Cancer Institute;

* An empirical analysis of Black women's utilization of health services entailing more than 18,000 women by Lonnie Snowden and his colleagues at the University of California-Berkeley Center for Mental Health Services Research;

* A comprehensive review and empirical analysis of the role of violence in Black women's health by Nancy Felipe Russo (Arizona State University), Mary Koss (University of Arizona), and Gwen Keita (APA Office on Women);

* An empirical investigation of the role of social and contextual variables in HIV risk among low-income Black women by Kathleen Sikkema, Timothy Heckman, and Jeffrey Kelly of the Center for AIDS Intervention Research, Medical College of Wisconsin.

Other articles include comprehensive and critical analyses and reviews of diabetes, breast cancer risk perceptions, and obesity among Black women, as well as analyses of Black women's exclusion from research in medicine, women's health, health psychology, and behavioral medicine.

The first issue of any psychology journal to be devoted to the health of Black women, this special issue is a step in the direction of redressing the long-overdue neglect of Black women's health. It provides a cogent overview of the state of Black women's health, numerous empirical investigations, and clear suggestions for future research.