“Loving ourselves in this way is important.”
Every hour, one woman in the U.S. is diagnosed with cervical cancer. While that statistic alone is shocking enough, here’s another: Black women are twice as likely to die from cervical cancer as white women. Yet cervical cancer is highly preventable through screenings, which can detect abnormal cells before they become cancerous. Where’s the disconnect?
A combination of discomfort around discussions of women’s reproductive health and pernicious disparities in access to health care come together to make cervical cancer a far more deadly disease than it should be for Black women. In response, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Ciara Wilson teamed up with Black Women’s Health Imperative and Hologic’s Project Health Equality to launch Cerving Confidence, a campaign aimed at empowering Black women to make pap tests and HPV [Human papillomavirus] screenings a priority.
KCM spoke with OB/GYN Dr. Jessica Shepherd; BWHI President and CEO Linda Goler Blount, MPH; and Ciara Wilson herself about what Black women face when it comes to health care, and why well-woman exams are truly self-care.
KCM: What are some of the barriers preventing Black women from receiving proper reproductive health care?
Linda Goler Blount: The structural barriers often have to do with how medical care delivery is organized. What kind of insurance you have, location, hours of operation — these barriers all mean that if you can’t get time off from work to see a doctor, you may not go. Frankly, a lot of women are in a situation where they’re having to make that choice. Do I take time off from work? Do I pay somebody to take care of my children? Do I spend money to go take care of my health? Do I run the risk of losing a job or losing income when, right now, I don’t feel like there’s something wrong? We really have to work on making sure that we put health care in the way and make it easy for women just to trip over. Put it at times and locations where it’s easy to get there and to take care of themselves.
What can Black women do to overcome those disparities in access?
Dr. Jessica Shepherd: That’s going to start with how we discuss cervical cancer. Sometimes there’s a little bit of misinformation or unknowns about a disease process. Cervical cancer can be prevented and treated. Even in that simple sentence, you can find so much reassurance, but we have to be willing to send that message. Continuing to have these types of discussions, campaigns, awareness allows people to be reassured, educated, but also takes away the stigma of anything below the belt when you think of health care. It’s just women’s health, period.
How does Black Women’s Health Imperative help with those barriers?
Linda Goler Blount: My organization focuses in part on awareness and education: Making sure women know about cervical cancer screening, breast cancer screening, about lifestyle changes, the things they can do. But the other side is really focused on policy and making sure that we look at policy from a big “P” perspective and small “p.” So what kinds of legislation can be put in place to get access to care and health insurance? But also at the small “p” level, what can employers do? What can community-based organizations do to make it easier for Black women to get access to health care? A lot of our work is funding federally qualified health centers so they’ll stay open later or be open on Saturdays and do other things to help women access care. Obviously in the last year, telemedicine has become hugely important and we expect that to continue.
Do you think telemedicine will become one of the major solutions to breaking down those barriers?
Linda Goler Blount: It should be. One of the things we’ve heard is that when providers have a telemedicine visit, when they can see into the home, they actually learn a lot more about their patient’s lived experience. Once they see that Mrs. Jones is taking care of her elderly mother, she’s got children, we’re hearing from women and from providers that they’re actually changing some of their recommendations and some of the meds they prescribe, to align with how women actually live.
What advice would you give to someone who’s going for their first well-woman exam?
Dr. Shepherd: Look at it from a perspective of, I’m going to invest in my health, I’m going to do something that is good for me, and look at it actually as a form of self-care. For people who might be shy or a little bit hesitant, those are the moments when you rely on your support system, whether that means bringing someone with you or allowing someone to be there as your support person.
What are some ways to make well-woman exams feel less invasive and more like self-care?
Ciara Wilson: Sometimes the things we experience are all about how we describe them. When we make that effort to go and do our well-woman exams, it’s part of checking on ourselves. It’s a part of us loving ourselves because we’re making sure we’re on top of our health. In the context of this campaign, Cerving Confidence — your well-woman exam is by far one of the most important boxes in your life that you can check off. So knowing that you’ve gotten that out of the way is a big form of self-care, and it really does make you feel confident.
How has your experience as a mother influenced your approach to this campaign?
Ciara Wilson: When I think about my daughter, I think about other young girls around the world and being able to impact their life. And about being able to leave a legacy for my daughter and my daughter’s daughters. Being able to educate, inform, empower, and encourage — those are all things that are important for the development of young women. How we take care of ourselves is a big part of my “why.”
How do you think you’ll approach conversations about reproductive health with your daughter?
Ciara Wilson: The greatest thing is always having an open line of communication. If I can build that from the ground up in these early critical days and stages of her life, that’s going to be really important. I definitely will make sure to sit down and have a real conversation with her about this part of life. I want to encourage and support her and just be a part of her journey in any way that I can, and any way that she wants and needs me to be.
Why do you think BWHI has been so successful in helping Black women take ownership of their health?
Linda Goler Blount: We know from our own research that the number one health issue for Black women is actually stress. If we start talking to you about stress and stress management, that will allow you to make the lifestyle changes you need to make, to go get your cervical cancer screening or your breast cancer screening, and to really practice self-care. But if you’re stressed out, you’ve got too much else going on, too much else on your mind to really focus on your health.
All of our work has been organized around that, and also from the perspective that there’s nothing wrong with Black women, we’re not broke or broke down, we are fine. If you give women and Black women a plan for their health, they’re good. So that’s what we do.
What is your top takeaway from Cerving Confidence?
Dr. Shepherd: As an OB GYN, there’s a lot of work needed in order to create equity in health care and to decrease racial disparities. We need to increase patients’ understanding of how important it is to take care of themselves, especially when it comes to diseases that kill and diseases that impact quality of life. I really feel that this is a great way to bring this conversation to light and allow us to protect our cervical health.
Ciara Wilson: The more that we know, the more we’re capable of and the more we can protect ourselves and take care of ourselves. Self-care is the best care. I want to inspire all my women to join this journey and get on this mission of taking care of ourselves at the highest level.
Linda Goler Blount: I think that the most important thing is that cervical cancer is one of the very few that is preventable. No one has to get cervical cervical cancer, and certainly no one has to die from cervical cancer. Our message is taking care of your health means getting screened and knowing that you are absolutely worth that, whatever time it takes.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
