Over the past 32 years, NHBW, Inc. has confronted issues adversely affecting the African-American family and communities at large. According to the American Heart Association (2006), African-American women continue to be at particularly high risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and stroke.

For African-Americans in the U.S., health disparities mean earlier death, decrease in quality of life and loss of treatment opportunities. For our society, it means less than optimal productivity, higher health costs and social inequity (MMWR, 2005). In a landmark study, conducted by the Institute of Medicine (2002), ‘Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care’, revealed that African-Americans and other ethnic minorities received lower quality health care than non-minorities, regardless of the types of insurance, income, age, or severity of illness as compared to Whites.

NHBW, Inc.’s programs have focused on addressing the disparities that exist in the U.S. healthcare system. Last year NHBW, Inc. joined forces with the American Stroke Association and the Power To End Stroke campaign to educated African-Americans of the Warning Signs of Stroke. Collectively, our programs reached over 320,000 in 2006.

October is a very special month because it is both National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Domestic Violence Prevention Month. Both of these conditions have a particular impact on African-American women. This Year, NHBW Inc.’s ‘Reaching Out to Save Lives’ campaign is designed to help African-American women improve their health by increasing the awareness of their health status, motivate behavior changes in the African-American community through the dissemination of health information and to encourage women to pledge to share this information with other women. To facilitate this effort, the NHBW, Inc. will concentrate expertise and focus on Breast Cancer Awareness and Domestic Violence for the next two years. On October 6, 2007, we kicked off our Domestic Violence programs with a candlelight vigil across several states to honor the victims of domestic violence and to bring awareness of resources in our community.

Please take this opportunity to become familiar with these two conditions and share what you have learned with ten of your family members and friends.