Vital Signs ran multiple articles written by Black women about their experience with lupus. These articles ranged in topics from the over use of imagery of white women in public health messaging about lupus when Black women are three times more likely to have lupus, to how Black women's lupus were written off as nerves and allergies, to how there is a lack of research into how individuals of different races and genders experience lupus. These articles all noted that Black women experience lupus in a way that is informed by their race and gender, between sexism and racism impacting their access to treatment to how lupus symptoms can worsen with stress induced flare ups that are more frequent with sexism and racism placing increased stressors on Black women.

How the Connection Between Storytelling and Culture is Shown through Lupus

Storytelling and empowering Black women to name and discuss their health concerns outside of a medicalized context served as a response to the racism experienced by Black women in the medical system.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

The NBWHP worked against the conspiracy of silence, the terminology used to refer to the idea that there was not much discussion between Black women and Black communities at large about health.

Emphasis on storytelling and hearing Black women's stories

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

Black Disability Politics

Sister Ink was one of the NBWHP's publications in which JoAnne Banks-Wallace framed storytelling as a tool of health and healing and a way in which Black women assert self-definition and self-determination.

Emphasis on Storytelling in Sister Ink

The NBWHP hosted a group called "Black and Female: What Is the Reality?" among other self-help workshops which encouraged Black women to share their health stories.

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