{"id":14247,"date":"2024-06-21T11:53:14","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T15:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/?p=14247"},"modified":"2024-06-25T21:28:36","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T01:28:36","slug":"amplifying-black-womens-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/issues\/summer-2024\/amplifying-black-womens-voices\/","title":{"rendered":"Amplifying Black Women’s Voices"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Silifat<\/div>

\n\n

Amplifying Black Women’s Voices<\/h1>\n\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

Silifat Yussuff-Mustapha \u201997, vice president of nursing and clinical services for Unity Health Care in Washington, D.C., is committed to improving health outcomes for African American mothers.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Marybeth Reilly-McGreen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A thought experiment: Imagine that a woman of color living in America learns she is pregnant and in need of prenatal care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But<\/em> she lives in an impoverished area unattractive to business development. And<\/em> that situation creates a food desert (an area without access to healthy food). And<\/em> the simplest exercise\u2014walking\u2014is difficult because her public housing facility doesn\u2019t have sidewalks. And<\/em> it\u2019s not safe to walk anyway because the crime rate is high in her city. And it\u2019s not safe at home because she lives with a smoker\u2014or an abuser. And<\/em> there are drugs or alcohol in the household.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are her chances of receiving good maternal and infant care?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before answering, consider a second scenario: A celebrated international tennis star and businesswoman, a household name, a woman in possession of serious power and wealth, experiences complications after a C-section. She is in a top hospital. She has access to the best doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But<\/em> she is Black. And<\/em> her complaints aren\u2019t taken seriously (despite telling medical staff that she has a preexisting condition for which she knows the protocol). And <\/em>she has a blood clot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are her chances of receiving good maternal and infant care?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not necessarily so different. The second scenario is not a hypothetical, but the actual and potentially lethal situation Serena Williams found herself in after the birth of her daughter. In the United States, Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate among American women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing to keep in mind about health disparities is that they are entirely preventable from a societal standpoint but potentially insurmountable for a person prevented from accessing adequate care. African American women in America are, in general, disproportionately affected by health disparities, defined by the National Institutes of Health as preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or access to health care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the space in which Silifat Yussuff-Mustapha \u201997, registered nurse and vice president of nursing and clinical services at Unity Health Care in Washington, D.C., situates herself. Yussuff-Mustapha, who received her master\u2019s degree in public health from Benedictine University and is currently working on her Ph.D. in nursing at the Catholic University of America, oversees a department of close to 200 nurses, medical assistants, directors of nursing, and nurse managers who provide primary and specialty care to about one-eighth of all D.C. residents and make more than 300,000 patient visits per year. Unity oversees 10 community health centers as well as homeless shelters, the D.C. Department of Corrections, two high schools, and street medical service to the homeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am interested in maternal mortality and morbidity in African American women because we are three to four times more likely to suffer either death or serious illness during childbirth,\u201d Yussuff-Mustapha says. \u201cAnd there are a lot of implications to health-care disparities in the United States that still go on due to mortality and morbidity during pregnancy because they have a higher incidence of diabetes and hypertension\u2014social determinants of health have a lot to do with that, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social determinants are the conditions of the environment in which a person lives and works\u2014conditions, such as poverty and access to clean water, that affect their health and quality of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n

\u201c<\/span>I am interested in maternal mortality and morbidity mainly in African American women because we are three to four times more likely to suffer either death or serious illness during childbirth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Silifat Yussuff-Mustapha, vice president of nursing and clinical services, Unity Health Care<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy research focuses on African American women\u2019s communication with their obstetrical providers, some of whom do not understand that a lot of these women have social determinants of health that prevent them from making their health and their baby\u2019s health a priority,\u201d Yussuff-Mustapha says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of documentation and data showing that Black women don\u2019t always feel heard by their health-care providers. And it\u2019s not necessarily specific to poor women. Serena Williams could have died because she wasn\u2019t being listened to by her providers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yussuff-Mustapha is a proponent of evidence-based practice in nursing; that is, a holistic approach to care that relies upon knowledge, research, and best practices rather than tradition, habit, colleagues\u2019 advice, or personal beliefs. One form that evidence-based practice can take\u2014and one Yussuff-Mustapha has researched and published about\u2014is involving frontline nurses in shared governance around nursing procedures and practice standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Yussuff-Mustapha\u2019s parents emigrated from Nigeria in 1972. She is their eldest child and only daughter. 溏心vlog免费B站 has been a central character in her life story; she remembers walking the Quad as a little girl when her mother was a 溏心vlog免费B站 student. Yussuff-Mustapha\u2019s youngest brother is also an alumnus. \u201c溏心vlog免费B站 is in our family,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While at 溏心vlog免费B站, the nursing major gravitated toward the arts in her downtime. Introduction to Jazz was Yussuff-Mustapha\u2019s favorite course, and she danced at halftime during men\u2019s basketball games with Flavor Unit, a dance team she co-founded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nursing appealed to a different aspect of her personality. She says her mother \u201cnudged\u201d her into health care because she believed it was a safe and lucrative field, but it also proved to be a path of purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am a nurse because my mom said, \u2018You should be a nurse.\u2019 People talk about their passion all the time,\u201d Yussuff-Mustapha muses. \u201cI don\u2019t think of nursing as my passion; I think it\u2019s my purpose. Not to minimize art, but I am so much more into health justice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ana Barazza \u201994, M.S. \u201904, shared many meals with Yussuff-Mustapha at Hope Dining Hall. They were sorority sisters (Alpha Kappa Alpha) and would often hang out together during Barazza\u2019s Monday afternoon radio show at WRIU. A Mary J. Blige tune would have Yussuff-Mustapha up and dancing in the station, Barazza recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat really bonded us was that we understood each other and understood the challenges that we were facing\u2014there were serious conversations about relationships or struggles with our grades, classes, financial aid. And it was also a lot of just enjoying ourselves and having a grand old time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a bond that\u2019s lasted more than 30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, we have a sorority sister who\u2019s going through a significant medical crisis, and Silifat stepped up and kept us all in the loop, translating medical terminology into plain English,\u201d says Barazza. \u201cWe\u2019ve had 30-plus years of friendship. She\u2019s always been a person who really cares.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

And while Yussuff-Mustapha is the first in her family to practice medicine professionally, she isn\u2019t its first caregiver. Her paternal grandmother was something of a midwife to her community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBack then, and with Nigeria being a developing country, not every job was degree-based or something you went to school for,\u201d Yussuff-Mustapha says. \u201cMy grandmother used to deliver babies for people. I\u2019m told she was sort of a midwife as needed in the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For much of human history, it fell to women like Yussuff-Mustapha\u2019s grandmother to care for a community\u2019s sick, elderly, and pregnant members, and a more informal education, such as an apprenticeship, was a viable path to a kind of professional standing, say Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English in the introduction to the 2010 edition of their book Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers<\/em>, first published in 1973.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ehrenreich and English call for health-care reform\u2014both in how the medical system functions and in how it treats the most vulnerable patients. They write, \u201cCompared to what we confronted in the 1970s, today\u2019s American health-care system features far more women as practitioners and even decision-makers \u2026 but basic problems of access and affordability will remain. For all our gains, we clearly have our work cut out for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you step into a doctor\u2019s office, there are power dynamics at work immediately, Yussuff-Mustapha says. And there is also history that has led to Black distrust of the medical establishment. Just google \u201cTuskegee syphilis experiment,\u201d \u201cHenrietta Lacks,\u201d or \u201cVermont eugenics apology.\u201d As recently as 2020, the American Civil Liberties Union reported that a for-profit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Georgia was performing sterilization procedures on immigrant women without informed consent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there is Dr. James Marion Sims, father of modern gynecology, inventor of the modern speculum, who performed medical procedures on Black women without permission or anesthesia. Yussuff-Mustapha offers the example of Sims to show how institutional racism and implicit bias travel through time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnslaved Black women were used by gynecologists for experimental surgeries without any anesthesia,\u201d she says. \u201cThese are documented occurrences, which link to the bias that occurs right now where it\u2019s felt or implied that people of color have a higher tolerance for pain\u2014which is, of course, not true at all. Melanin doesn\u2019t determine your tolerance for pain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, assumptions become implicit bias. \u201cPractitioners are taught or hear things without stopping to think if it makes sense, and it just becomes a part of their everyday practice,\u201d Yussuff-Mustapha says. \u201cIt\u2019s been happening for so long, too long.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Silifat<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\u201c<\/span>We must amplify the importance of accessible health care for every individual, regardless of their background. By focusing on equity, we can ensure that all members of our community have the opportunity to live healthier, longer lives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Silifat Yussuff-Mustapha, vice president of nursing and clinical services, Unity Health Care<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Practitioners cannot solve health disparities on their own, though. Change will come when ending inequity becomes a societal priority, Yussuff-Mustapha says.

\u201cWe must amplify the importance of accessible health care for every individual, regardless of their background. By focusing on equity, we can ensure that all members of our community have the opportunity to live healthier, longer lives,\u201d Yussuff-Mustapha says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or to live life at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlack maternal health is at stake. The maternal mortality and morbidity of pregnant Black women has been deemed a public health emergency by the CDC,\u201d Yussuff-Mustapha says. \u201cWe must keep talking about it and providing answers to the questions of why this continues to happen, and how we can advocate for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PHOTOS: LISA HELFERT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prioritizing Health-Care Disparities: Silfat Yussuff-Mustapha ’97, vice president of nursing and clinical services for Unity Health Care in Washington, D.C., has a mission: End the crisis of Black maternal mortality and morbidity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":14230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[336],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-summer-2024","architecture-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14247"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14884,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14247\/revisions\/14884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}