The first seventeen chapters of Body and Soul focused heavily on reproductive physical health but the second half of the book had chapters on emotional health, self-help, spiritual health, self-love, relationships and their impact on sex, domestic violence, incest, child abuse, HIV/AIDS, and workplace and environmental health hazards. 

How Body and Soul Addressed Holistic Health

Vital Signs and Body and Soul discussed the history of practices in Black diasporic cultures that are similar to the botanica - small stores that sell herbal medicine and items central to religious, spiritual and ancestral practices that are common in Latinx communities. There are versions of these practices that are contemporarily used by antiracist and feminist activist organizations.

NBWHP's Health Project and non-Western Healing Practice

Body and Soul: The Black Women's Guide to Physical Health and Emotional Well-Being was a self-help book edited by Linda Villarosa and published by the NBWHP in 1994.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

The NBWHP's definition of health shows that the NBWHP believes that physical symptoms cannot be adequately treated unless mental, emotional and spiritual health is also addressed. While the NBWHP had self-help groups and programming focused on certain common physical health concerns for Black women - e.g. diabetes, hypertension, HIV/AIDS - it also addressed a wide variety of health and wellness topics.

How the NBWHP Holistically Approached Health

Schalk, Sami. Black Disability Politics, New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478027003

Black Disability Politics

Vital Signs was the National Black Women's Health Project's newsletter and magazine. The publication was originally a 9-28 page photocopied or newsprint quarterly newsletter. From 1993-1995 Vital Signs changed to a 40-60 page quarterly magazine and later became an annual publication.

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