Women’s Health Awareness: A Gift To All

Women’s Health is a national concern.

According to the United States Census Bureau, women currently make up over half of the total US population. Women are more likely to suffer from more chronic illnesses than men. Moreover, African American and Hispanic women have the highest occurrence of chronic diseases and overall poorer health outcomes than women of all other races.

A recent analysis from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), found that black mothers in the U.S. die at three to four times the rate of white mothers, one of the widest of all racial disparities in women’s health. Put another way, a black woman is 22 percent more likely to die from heart disease than a white woman, 71 percent more likely to perish from cervical cancer, but 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes. Additionally, black, college-educated mothers who gave birth in local hospitals were more likely to suffer severe complications of pregnancy or childbirth than white women who never graduated from high school. This may indicate that irrespective of educational level or financial status, black women are more likely to receive a lower quality of care, resulting in life-threatening complications.

Given these important health facts and consideration that women usually take care of others in their family before focusing on their own health needs, self-care and self-advocacy are of vital importance for women’s health. Women’s Health Awareness 2020 (WHA), a women’s wellness conference, provides women of all ages an opportunity to focus their attention on their health. WHA empowers women by assisting them in acquiring health knowledge, health strategies and tools, health resources and health screenings for early detection, prevention, treatment, and control of diseases. Collectively, these factors increase a woman’s ability to understand her own health needs and become an advocate for her personal health.

The Gift Of Women’s Health Awareness 2020

Women’s Health Awareness 2020 is a FREE women’s wellness conference and is open to ALL women and men who are interested in supporting women’s health. Recognizing that the month of April is National Minority Health Month and the first full week in April is National Public Health Week, homage is paid to these observances by raising awareness of health disparities that affect minorities by reaching out to women of color, the underserved, underinsured and uninsured. 2020 marks the sixth year of this annual event.

The full-day event’s purpose is to increase health awareness, environmental health literacy, and health equity by providing a wide range of health seminars, environmental health information sessions, health services, health resources, and on-site health screenings. In 2019, over 1,100 women attended as participants, exhibitors, clinicians, health education specialists, institutional officials, and volunteers.

Free on-site health screenings are a part of this conference and include dental services, depression screening, diabetes testing, healthy heart screenings, hearing testing, kidney function testing, lung cancer assessments, lung function, and capacity testing, mammography and cervical cancer sign-up, skin cancer screens, vision screens, and STI screenings.

This year, an acclaimed, award-winning author will headline Women’s Health Awareness 2020. Harriet A. Washington, author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, that chronicles health-care experiments and mistreatment conducted on blacks in America, will serve as the keynote speaker.

Ms. Washington has written a new book on environmental racism, A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind. This work looks at the devastating consequences of environmental racism in America and the impact of environmental exposures on the minds of our youth and what we can do to limit these exposures in marginalized communities. In addition to the keynote, there will be an opportunity to meet and greet Ms. Washington at an intimate book signing event.

WHA conference organizers partner with numerous community, government, university, and business organizations to bring the most up-to-date health information, and health services to the community. Some of these organizations include Durham County Department of Public Health, Community Health Coalition, NC Department of Health and Human Services, Duke University Hospital, Duke Cancer Institute, UNC Dental Hygiene Program, UNC Pharmacy Program, and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Joan Packenham, Ph.D., founder of the event and director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Office of Human Research Compliance, states that “If we can educate and motivate women to take care of their health first, they will, in turn, make sure that their family’s health is taken care of, and that translates to communities, states, and the nation.” This statement alone emphasizes the importance of community events like Women’s Health Awareness 2020.

Women’s Health Awareness 2020 will take place on Saturday, April 4, 2020, on the campus of North Carolina Central University. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is the lead sponsor with co-sponsors Durham Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the Durham Alumnae Delta House, Inc., and North Carolina Central University.

On-site registration is available however, pre-registration is now open but ends on March 16, 2020. For more information about Women’s Health Awareness 2020 go to www.niehs.nih.gov/whad or call 919-541-3852.