Black Women's Bodies Keeps the Score

Black women in America carry a disproportionate burden of heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. In our research published in Advances in Nursing Science, and led by Dr. Latesha K. Harris, set out to understand why and what we found goes far deeper than individual health behaviors.

We propose that structural racism through housing inequity, limited healthcare access, and chronic exposure to discrimination, doesn't just shape life circumstances, it shapes the body itself, through a process called epigenetics: changes in how genes are expressed without altering the underlying DNA. Systemic stress leaves a biological fingerprint.

This work builds directly on a critical argument my colleague Dr. Adams and I made in American Psychologist: that framing Black women as superwomen or symbols of effortless resilience actually causes harm. Resilience is not a fixed trait Black women are born with. It is something forged under pressure, and that pressure has a cost.

Our new framework takes that insight into the body. We center the cultural strengths and community bonds Black women draw on as genuine biological buffers, while demanding that healthcare providers recognize cardiometabolic health as a structural issue, not just a personal one. Check it out for yourself.

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