Health & Healthcare Disparities for African American Women Survivors of Violence

Disparities in health outcomes and healthcare experienced by communities of color and by survivors of violence are well-documented in research. However, the "cumulative burden of lifetime adversities" (Myers et al., 2015) that negatively impacts the health outcomes and healthcare experiences of women of color who have survived violence have been under-investigated. To address this gap in current knowledge the proposed study aims are to:

• Determine whether and to what extent adult Black women survivors of intimate partner and/or sexual violence that occurred at any age experience psychological symptoms and show elevated inflammatory biomarkers;
• Describe difficult health care experiences and strategies for navigating those experiences used by adult Black women.

The proposed study will combine quantitative bioanalysis and survey methods with qualitative focus group methods to fulfill these aims. Bioanalysis will measure the physiological consequences of stress for participants, survey analysis will assess trauma exposure and psychological symptoms, and analysis of focus group transcripts will provide narrative context for experiences of trauma and illustrate connections between trauma and healthcare experiences. Findings from this study would provide continued evidence for disparities in health outcomes experienced by African American women and survivors of violence, and provide more novel data on the potentially cumulative nature of these health disparities as well as on the connections between health outcomes and healthcare experiences for this population. Study aims are closely aligned with the goals of the Center for Innovation in Health Disparities Research, particularly with regard to developing programs of health disparities research and improving collaboration with disadvantaged and marginalized communities.