'Wellness, community, justice and God': New Des Moines nonprofit promotes Black women's health

At 33 years old with no prior health conditions, La-Tica Paige had a heart attack.

But she was in such denial that it wasn't until she was sitting in the emergency room with mind-numbing chest pain that what was happening really hit her.

"I said 'I feel like somebody dropped a brick on my chest.' And [the nurse] dropped her knees and she grabbed my hand. She said 'Honey, you're having a heart attack.' And I started crying," Paige said, sharing her story in Des Moines' Corinthian Baptist Church on a recent Saturday. "'I can't have a heart attack my daughter is in school...I can't do this right now. I need to be doing something else.'"

A room of about 20 Black women listened intensely to Paige's survival story, nodding their heads, some quietly saying "mmhmm".

"I have always been serious about my health from that moment forward," Paige said. "When I go to the doctor and you give me medical terms, I'll listen and then I say 'What does that mean?' "

Paige told her health story at an event organized by Black Women 4 Healthy Living. The group is a Christian-centered nonprofit focused on Black women's wellness. 

The nonprofit plans to host a free health event once a month, on each third Saturday, focusing on health concerns that disproportionally affect Black women.

Nationally, Black women are more likely than white women to die in childbirth or of breast cancer, to have high blood pressure and die of heart disease. The group plans to address topics like sickle cell disease, colon and breast cancer, stigmas surrounding mental health and others.

"It's very important that we wrap our arms around our Black women in our community, because they face a lot of health inequities and disparities that other communities don't face an increased risk of," said Anesa Buchanan, a board member of Black Women 4 Healthy Living.

In February, the group hosted an event on heart disease, leading cause of death in Black women. According the Center for Disease Control, one in 16 Black women over the age of 20 develop coronary heart disease. Overall, heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States.

The monthly health and wellness events offer childcare, job search assistance, consultations with a podiatrist and an occupational therapist, a mental health assessments and general health assessments all for free.

Focusing on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being of Black woman

Black Women 4 Healthy Living was born out of a desire for a more holistic approach to helping Black women advocate and take care of themselves.

"We are under a lot of stress, and that's because we appear to be natural caregivers so we tend to take care of everyone else's needs and therefore we put our needs on the back-burner," said president and founder Brandi Miller. "That suggests to me that there's a lot more going on inside of us that we care to like maybe address."

Miller describes an experience that many Black women experience called the "superwoman schema". The superwoman schema, also known as the strong Black women role, describes the Black women priority of caring for others over caring for themselves.

According to several independent studies, the superwoman schema can be linked to Black women's efforts to "counteract negative societal characteristics of African American womanhood" and the Black family by shouldering all of the responsibility on themselves.

As a result, the schema can be a "double edged sword" for Black women who are "disproportionately high risk for adverse health conditions" but often write off illnesses as stress, according to a 2011 study.

"If I see that other people are more valuable than me, then I'm going to put their needs in front of mine," Miller said. "That can be perceived as being self-sacrificing, but you're not supposed to be so self-sacrificing to your own detriment." 

Miller said she started Black Women 4 Healthy Living in an effort to get back to the fundamentals of self- and preventative care. The nonprofit has a working board of seven with 25 members overall, focusing on its four pillars: wellness, community, justice and God.

Since its conception in 2020, the organization has hosted blood drives, COVID-19 vaccination clinics, a breast cancer walk, a Juneteenth event and a weekend retreat, where Miller said she went ziplining for the first time.

'This will give Black women encouragement to advocate for themselves'

Angela Mickens-Bolden, the head of the organization's health coalition, will spearhead, the nonprofit's next venture: teaching Black women to advocate for themselves in the healthcare.

Mickens-Bolden has been in the healthcare industry for nearly 30 years and is currently a surgical nurse at UnityPoint Health in Des Moines. In her career, she says she's seen how disparities in the healthcare system have impacted Black women's lives. 

During Saturday's event, Mickens-Bolden said she's heard from other Black women who felt they were being ignored by their doctors, treated like they didn't know their own bodies and treated with disrespect.

She hopes the monthly events will help give Black women a safe space to disclose things about their health that they might not feel comfortable discussing with their primary care provider. Those concerns are talked through with the specialists at the events and written down on reference cards that the women can then bring those to show their doctors. 

"It unfortunately gives them more credibility to their concerns," Mickens-Bolden said. "So when they say 'this is what they found when I went to the health coalition', that they are looked at more urgently than they were in the past."

The events also gives local nursing students exposure to caring and interacting with Black, female patients by offering volunteer opportunities to help with intake and health assessments. 

But even with the seriousness that can come with talking about health and wellness, the women find ways to experience joy together through trying different healthy snacks and engaging in a low-impact physical activity. 

As a techno remix of the Christian song "Our God is an awesome God" played in the background, the room filled with Black women who laughed and smiled as they body squatted in unison. 

"This will give Black women encouragement to advocate for themselves and empower them to be consistent with their health," Mickens-Bolden said. "A safe place for them to come in, relax, get their own care taken care of so they'll be able to take care of others."

Melody Mercado covers Des Moines city government for the Register. Reach her at mmercado@registermedia.com or Twitter @melodymercadotv.