Speaking for Ourselves: Reclaiming, Redesigning, and Reimagining Research on Black Women’s Health

Jameta Nicole Barlow, PhD, MPH, is a native of Charlottesville, Virginia, a community health psychologist, and Assistant Professor of Women and Health in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at Towson University, Towson, Maryland. Dr. Barlow employs a Black Feminist praxis and Womanist epistemology toward applied research, as informed by her eighteen years of transdisciplinary collaborations and work in the federal government, national nonprofits, and universities. Committed to #ReclaimingBGWH, she utilizes decolonizing methodologies to disrupt intergenerational trauma, chronic health diseases, and structural policies adversely affecting Black girls’ and women’s health. A 2015 AcademyHealth/Aetna Foundation Scholar-in-Residence Fellow, 2016–2018 Obesity Health Disparities Programs to Increase Diversity among Individuals Engaged in Health-Related Research Scholar, and 2016 RAND Faculty Leaders Fellow in Policy Research and Analysis, her current work, Saving Our Sisters Project (www.savingoursistersproject.com), is focused on Black women’s mental health and well-being.

LeConté J. Dill, DrPH, MPH, was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles and is currently creating a homeplace in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn. She is a scholar, educator, and poet. Dr. Dill holds degrees in sociology and public health from Spelman College, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Berkeley, was a postdoctoral fellow at Morehouse School of Medicine, and was a 2016 Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop Fellow. Committed to practicing what she names as #CrunkPublicHealth, Dr. Dill’s work documents urban Black girls’ experiences of violence, safety, resistance, and wellness. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Community Health Sciences at the State University of New York Downstate School of Public Health in Brooklyn and a Research Associate at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa.