A Guide to Black Women’s Health | Bostonia

In her new book, alum Melody T. McCloud presents a comprehensive resource for women to learn the signs, symptoms, treatments, and preventive measures for head-to-toe conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, cancers, HIV, dementia, and maternal mortality.

In Black Women’s Wellness: Your “I’ve Got This!” Guide to Health, Sex, and Phenomenal Living (Sounds True, 2023), the Atlanta, Ga.–based OB/GYN, public speaker, and media consultant provides clinical data, motivating anecdotes, and tools to enable readers to overcome long-standing health inequities and improve their physical, psychological, and social well-being. The book is aimed at the general public, but also can be used for course curriculum and as a reference for health professionals, says McCloud (CAS’77, CAMED’81), and it addresses what other physician-authored books don’t: the effect that racism and microaggressions—psychosocial stressors—have on Black women’s physical and mental health.

Psychosocial stressors come in many forms, she says, from daily disparaging comments to mainstream music: “Today’s ‘music’ has gone from ‘Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch’ and ‘My Cherie Amour’ to ‘ho, slut, and whore.’ That’s not positive messaging; that’s not endearing. And if your men are talking to you that way and you listen to that all day, that’s going to pain your psyche.”

McCloud also demonstrates how stress can affect physical health and could even lead to death. “Stress increases your cortisol and other stress hormones,” she says, “which can lead to hypertension, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes—all potential killer diseases.”

The book has chapters about sex and sexual health, relationships, domestic abuse, and gun violence. “The Black community is hemorrhaging,” she says. “Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, homicide is the sixth leading cause of death for Blacks, but is not listed at all for any other demographic. That’s not only a public safety crisis, it’s a public health crisis that requires all hands on deck—especially Black parents—working from within to save the community.”

McCloud provides a checklist for readers to review their family’s medical history and a “self-inventory” checklist for readers to complete and show their doctors.

“You have to be proactive about your health, especially in this day and time, because unfortunately, healthcare delivery services are not what they used to, or need to, be,” she says. “In too many ways, the profession has become a corporate-led ‘industry.’ It’s a whole different animal. There’s more of a laid-back approach, and a shift mentality. There’s too much ‘checking boxes’ instead of listening to the patient, then writing a narrative note of what the patient says and the clinician’s findings. As a result, patients have to be their own best advocate. I wrote this book to educate and encourage readers to be savvy and empowered patients. We can change the tide.”

She suggests patients find a doctor they trust and get recommended preventive exams and screenings on schedule. They should take their written concerns to medical appointments, and when possible, take someone medical with them who can help pose questions they may not know to ask.

McCloud also recommends that women see an obstetrician even before becoming pregnant, and they should not delay prenatal care. “We have such high rates of maternal, perinatal, and infant mortality,” she says, “and yes, implicit bias is real: many times, Black women’s concerns are not heard. But the number-one reason for pregnancy-related mortality is that Black women do not start prenatal care early—in the first trimester. Almost 90 percent of maternal morbidity and mortality cases are preventable.

“Women are usually the health stewards of the family,” McCloud says. “Changing the health of Black women can change that of her family, and all future generations. Get your babies off to a solid start.”

Her book has been praised by public figures. “This book is a blueprint to help us ensure total health,” writes actor Pauletta Washington. And Jen Ashton, an OB/GYN and ABC News/Good Morning America’s chief medical correspondent, writes, “Black Women’s Wellness will improve women’s lives.”

“That is my goal,” McCloud says.

Read about the three-decade-long BU-led Black Women’s Health Study here.