Health Care Issues for Women of Color

Here in central Illinois, we have access to a wide variety of high quality
health care; unfortunately, not every one takes advantage of these
opportunities, even though they are available, and women of color are
no exception. There are a number of opportunities for women and their
daughters to be proactive about their health care, and the time to start is now.

Most parents are used to seeing that their children receive all their “shots”
(vaccinations) as part of the routine care given to them before they reach
school age. Young girls should also get immunized against the wart virus
that causes cervical cancer; this vaccination process starts at age 9 and is one
of the best gifts to give your daughter. Study after study has shown the very
large number of girls who have already begun their sexual activity before
they leave high school and often before finishing grade school as well. The
vaccine cannot protect against unwanted pregnancy; it can, however, reduce
(by 75%) that girl’s chances of becoming infected with the most common
wart virus types that cause genital warts and cervical cancer. Get your
daughters and granddaughters immunized – it may save their lives!

Along with beginning sexual activity, birth control needs to be addressed
– before that girl or that young woman becomes pregnant. In this case,
prevention is much, much easier and safer than deciding about abortion or
carrying an unplanned pregnancy and the social and emotional consequences
that accompany both bad choices. These young girls are biologically able to
get pregnant; unfortunately, they are often not emotionally mature enough
to take care of themselves, continue with their life plans, and raise a child at
the same time. The girl suffers physically and emotionally, the child suffers
growing up with a young mother and often with no father in the family, and
society suffers because of the lack of productivity of the mother as well as
the expenses paid out to care for this dependent mother and child.

There are a number of safe and effective birth control options available;
don’t wait – get your daughter on one of them before she misses her period.

The next time your daughter needs to have blood drawn for any reason, be
proactive and also get her tested for sickle cell trait. This only needs to be
done once in her lifetime, and, if it is positive, it is important to know about
it whenever she is pregnant. If it is negative, it will not be a concern.

Once your daughter is about 6, make it a point to bring her with you when
you have your annual examination. This is the best way to introduce her
to the kind of care she ought to be getting as she becomes a young woman
and then an adult. Children are sponges – they listen and observe so many
things, and they will listen to and observe what goes on between you and
your physician. Later on, when someone at school or elsewhere starts telling
her about what “really” goes on (the horror stories, as I like to call them),
she will already know the truth since she had already seen it first hand from
her most important role model, her mother.

Unless you are a smoker, breast cancer is the cancer that is most likely to
affect you. In the United States today, the biggest reason women don’t get
their mammograms is because their health care provider doesn’t mention it
to them. Women of color do get breast cancer, too; it is regrettable that they
don’t get their mammograms done often enough and thus are less likely to
catch their cancers at an early stage.

Smoking is far and away the biggest preventable health problem for women
– not just in our city or state, but also around the country and around the
world. Smoking is associated with cancer of the lung, mouth, throat, lip, and
bladder. Be proactive about your health – ask your doctor to suggest some
methods to help you cut down or quit smoking – and do them!

Osteoporosis is found in women of color, just as it is in other women, and
it can be as disabling and as deadly in them as well. Talk to your doctor
about what kind and how much exercise to use as well as how much calcium
to take daily and how to take it; love yourself more by caring for yourself
better.

Second only to breast cancer in non-smoking women of color is colon
cancer. The American Cancer Society suggests colonoscopy for all women,
beginning at age 50. Like cancer of the breast, most of the women who
develop cancer of the colon do not have a family history of it. Talk with
your doctor about foods and supplements that can decrease your risk of
colon cancer.

Make this the year you love yourself enough to begin partnering with your
doctor to get yourself healthier or to keep yourself that way if you’re already
in good shape. Be a positive example for your children and your friends –
let them see that you are actively working on your own health care.