Many definitions of holistic health do not include spiritual health the inclusion of spirituality is particularly because of the NBWHP's work in the Black community and is an example of the NBWHP being culturally responsive.

How the NBWHP's Approach to Holistic Health is Culturally Informed

The National Black Women's Health Project (NBWHP) understood that physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health could impact each other. In 1986, the organization's publication, *Vital Signs*, ran an article titled "Emotional Aspects of Chronic Illness." This article addressed how chronic illness can emotionally impact people through factors such as the grief or shame accompanying a loss of ability, how changes in physical appearance affect self-esteem, and the mental and emotional effects of being objectified and denied privacy within the medical-industrial complex.

Vital Signs Article "Emotional Aspects of Chronic Illness"

Vital Signs had a consistent recognition of emotional, mental, spiritual and physical health and did not amplify one factor of health over others. Vital Signs had a regular section called Well Woman which sported the tagline: Empowerment through Wellness: Mental, Physical and Spiritual. Well Woman also had coloums that addressed each part of holistic health. 

University of Wisconsin - Madison

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.

Vital Signs

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

Black Disability Politics

How Vital Signs 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

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.

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