Forty years ago, the public was angry. It seems that there is a wave of teenage girls, especially black teenage girls, who are pregnant. “It's a new idea, it's a new class of bias, and it's portrayed in these terms, which are really inaccurate: the baby has a baby.”
Geronimus was a graduate student at the time. The general wisdom is that infant mortality rates in black communities are high because women have children when they are young. “I used to work in a school for pregnant women. Nothing I heard was common sense, and that's what I saw,” she said.
Geronimus looked at the numbers and found that in fact, the younger mother was suffering from a more successful pregnancy. “For black women, the lowest risk age is in their teens and teenage years. If you have a baby, you are at risk of infant mortality, and if you are 18 or 19 years old,” she said.
How did people react to what she found? “Not very good!” said Geronimus. “People thought I was promoting teenage childcare. These papers wrote columns, which they called things like “The Research Queen said to let them have babies.”’ I have a death threat.”
Geronimus became a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where she teaches today. She lowered her image, but also expanded her perspective, examining the lower life expectancy of black Americans (72.8 years) compared to white Americans (77.5).
She developed a theory that stress caused by racism and other social stress can lead to poor health. She named it “Weathered.”
“For example, the idea of weathering means how rocks will be weathered by hundreds of years of rain and wind energy,” she said. “It will affect it.” [and] Absolute wear. I especially like the word weathering because it also has another meaning, that you spend it in a storm. ”
Weathering theory involves not only the length of life, but also the quality of life. For example, while black women are on average more than whites (76.5 years old vs. 75.1), Geronimus found that black women face shorter Positive Life expectancy (59 years) is more than white men (64 years) – that is, black women become disabled in the early stages.
After decades of theory, she puts it all together in a book called Weathering: The Extraordinary Pressure of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society. She defines weathering as the way structural racism makes life very difficult. But there are many different factors. “Isn’t this something that only affects people of color; it could be a class issue, too?” I asked.
Small, brown spark
“It could be a class problem, it could be a stigmatized group problem; anyone of humans has the ability to change if they are also oppressed, marginalized or endless stressors, whether they are also or not Will it be weathered or is it a hard or hunger of the environment or material, or the fact that you are not affirmed or valued, you must question where you belong and what you do or say in different situations.”
Most of Dr. Kimberlydawn's career has put Geronimus' theory into practice, trying to overcome the weathering effects: “She endured a lot of things for the work. We just need to applaud her. Her courage is excellent.”
Wisdom is Vice President of Community Health and Equity at Henry Ford Health in Detroit. She also served as Michigan’s first surgeon.
She notes how daily stress actually lowers the body to cellular levels, leading to premature aging. “The body keeps the score,” she said. “So, take diabetes, take high blood pressure, take cardiovascular disease, infant mortality, maternal mortality – multiply the adverse results by two or three, and that's what you're in color Seen in the population. Cold but colored populations actually show pneumonia.”
For example, the latest research shows that black Americans have more than twice the mortality rate than white Americans (10.9 vs. 4.52).
To meet the challenges, Dr. Wisdom built the Win Network, a network that represents a female-inspired neighborhood network. The expected mother receives health care, guidance and support through pregnancy and later, which leads to a decrease in maternal and infant deaths and an increase in birth weight.
Courtney Anderson said that through victory, her third child, Kalani, had a great experience. “She is a happy child. The happiest baby I have ever received,” Anderson said.
Anderson had his first child, Kamrine, before winning the Victory Network. A year later, his brother Kristian followed. “Take my first child…my hands are full of stress. A little frustrated. Postpartum depression.” But she said the support she received through victory was a significant improvement that increased her happiness, which in turn Coming over here has a positive impact on her children again. “Knowing that mom is happy, it will have a very impact on them,” Anderson said. “When mom is happy, they get it, and there are more.”
I asked Wisdom: “What would you say to people who might brag about health'?”
“Yes, people should eat healthy and have healthy behaviors, but when we browse the lens of what’s really going on in society, we see weathering.” “You can do all these things and the results are not great. Look, typical The narrative is that you eat healthy, go to school, get a college degree, live a good life, you live in 80 or 90. This happens in a population.
When asked whether the concept of “weathering” could be seen as another way to get black people into victims, or established in another stereotype, that’s far from the facts. Even if you go back to slavery, no one will work harder or do more.
Ultimately, it reminds me of my own family. My parents died in their 70s. The two siblings died in the early 1960s…all siblings were too early. Some diseases (diabetes, cancer, hypertension) are almost expected, or just the field. Wisdom said It shouldn't be The accompanying territory – or the reason for this territory is the cause of weathering.
Wisdom says, “Many people of color, families say, 'Oh, we all have diabetes. We all have cancer. I mean, it's part of the natural life process. It's the process of life.” That's no Life courses. ”
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A story produced by Alan Golds. Edited by: Ed Givnish.
Nancy Giles
