In 1948 the World Health Organization's (WHO) definition of health was that the WHO, "defines health positively, as complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely negatively as the absence of disease or infirmity."

NBWHP's Definition of Health and the WHO

The NBWHP has never offered an explicit definition of wellness and well-being. However the pamphlet Black Women Helping Ourselves notes that self-help groups allow Black women to define wellness for themselves and have those definitions shaped by the larger social forces in their lives

How NBWHP Defines Wellness and Well-being

The National Black Women's Health Project defined health as "not merely the absence of illness, but the active promotion of physical, spiritual, mental and emotional wellness of this and future generations."

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Schalk analyzes the NBWHP as an example of Black disability politics because:
- how disability was explicitly and implicitly included within NBWHP's mission
- NBHWP's self-help phiilosophy
- NBWHP's holistic, cultural, and political approaches to health and wellness
- how spirituality was incorporated into NBWHP's public health work.

NBWHP as Black Disability Politics

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

Black Disability Politics

The NBWHP's work is intersectional in nature because it is centered on the intersection of race and gender. This is evident both with how the organization grew out of white feminist health activism as a specifically Black feminist health organization, but also in publications and internal documents that overwhelmingly name racism and sexism as categories of oppression with major impacts on Black women's health.

Intersectionality and the NBWHP

How the National Black Women's Health Project Defines Health

The NBWHP rooted their health activist work in the lived experiences of Black women and the culture of the Black and African diaspora communities they lived in. The cultural approach to health taken by the NBWHP is similar to how disability is often contextualized within other Black disability politics. 

How the NBWHP's Cultural Approaches to Health Connect to Black Disability Politics

The NBWHP saw health as inherently political and recognized its links to other oppressions. THE NBWHP also recognized health's status as being affected by political policy but also sought to raise political engagement within its membership.

Political Approaches to Health

The National Black Women's Health Project took a dual-pronged approach to the HIV/AIDS epidemic which on one had aimed to reduce the number of new HIV infections and another prong which worked to provide support to Black women living with HIV/AIDS.

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