May 7, 2021
Black women are disproportionately affected by health issues including heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. To address racial health disparities, the WNBA/WNBPA Social Justice Council, a collective of athletes and activists cultivated after the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, will lead an initiative that will focus on health equity, highlighting the inequities and systemic racism in healthcare, while promoting mental health awareness.
As part of this effort, the WNBA and the WNBPA have pledged to donate $25,000 to the Black Women’s Health Imperative, a grassroots organization that works to holistically improve the health and wellness of Black women and girls. The league will also create vaccination sites in underserved communities to help aid the disparity in healthcare for Black women and girls.
According to the Journal of Women's Health, Black women continue to experience excess mortality relative to other US women, including—despite overall improvements among Black women—shorter life expectancies and higher rates of maternal mortality. Moreover, they are disproportionately burdened by chronic conditions, such as anemia, cardiovascular disease and obesity with the higher burden of these chronic conditions reflected in the structural inequities within and outside the health system. And all of this has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The announcement included athletes A’ja Wilson, Layshia Clarendon, Elizabeth Williams and Nneka Ogwumike. “I don’t think there’s a way for me individually to stay out of politics or to stay out of social justice because my existence is really political and the country, we live in has made it political,” Clarendon said to CNBC.
“Led by the WNBA/WNBPA Social Justice Council, the league and union will continue to advance the efforts of the Justice Movement, the platform initiated in 2020 through which the players lead important work in the community to combat racial and gender inequality, promote advocacy for LBGTQ+ rights, and champion reform in systems where injustice persists,” read a WNBA statement. “These collaborative efforts represent the WNBA/WNBPA’s continued commitment to advancing social justice and being a driving force of necessary change.”
The PSA and donation are part of the overarching 25th Season ‘Count It’ campaign which celebrates WNBA players’ history of advocacy across a variety of societal issues.
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