Weathering
What is Weathering? A Brief Explanation of the Phenomenon Negatively Impacting Black American Health.
Throughout history, disparities have been present between Black and White communities, whether in income and wealth, access to education, or health and wellness. In recent years, with the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing health risks, these disparities in health and life expectancy in particular have been exacerbated. The healthcare sector in the US has been designed to put Black people at a disadvantage, leading to higher mortality and disease rates within Black communities.
Currently, Black life expectancy is 70.8 years, compared to the white life expectancy of 76.4; it didn’t reach 65, however, until 1995, while white men were living through their mid-sixties by 1950. Historically, Black people have struggled with higher rates of high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and strokes and are typically more susceptible to these illnesses up to 10 years earlier than white people. For years, however, such health disparities were either ignored entirely or blamed on unhealthy diets, genetics, addiction, and “black-on-black” violence – explanations that reflected Jim Crow and slavery eras and a white medical system that promoted black inferiority to justify its being built on segregation. While lower access to nutritious food options, medical care, and other resources is very much a cause of lower overall health status among Black communities, the phenomenon known as “weathering” can also explain the impact that the psychological strain of being Black today has on health and wellness.
Weathering, a term coined in 1992 by Arline Geronimus, describes how the constant stressors present in everyday life as a Black person can literally wear down the body’s systems and contribute to higher risk of disease and illness. From dealing with microaggressions at school and in the workplace, to navigating a world based on systems and laws with discrimination built into their very foundations, to constantly opening the news to police brutality and killings of Black people, increased levels of stress in a Black person’s life can cause biological aging and increase their susceptibility to chronic illnesses. The human body’s response to stress is effective for three minute situations of life or death, but when this becomes a person’s constant state of being, it begins to have negative impacts; constant fats and sugars being propelled into the bloodstream for energy, an enlarged heart due to a constant high heart rate, hypertension due to pushing so much blood through arteries and veins to keep the heart and breath going.
As black people age, their bodies literally become unable to defend them from disease and harm; for example, Black women in their 20s deal with higher pregnancy and birth complications than Black teenagers who become pregnant, because they have experienced more stress and thus their bodies are unable to support themselves and their baby properly. Among Black men in particular, the everyday struggles to support their families and pull them out of endless cycles of poverty – known as the John Henry phenomenon – can cause extreme negative impact on their health and ability to fight illness. John Henry, the main character of a Black folktale, was a steel-driving man who defeated a steam-powered drill, but although his determination and strength put him on top, they were eventually what killed him. Today, we see many examples of this; Black people fighting night and day against modern-day “steam-powered drills” – systems that push them into poverty and lower access to resources and opportunities – rarely able to take rests, struggling to get ahead, their relentless hard-work eventually changing their bodies and causing their lives to end early.
Weathering During the Global Pandemic
With the COVID-19 pandemic, these health disparities and the concept of weathering were only exacerbated. Black men aged 35 to 44 were dying at nine times the rate of their white counterparts, and a study by the Brookings Institution on COVID related deaths found that at each age range, Black people were typically dying at a rate similar to that of white people more than 10 years older than them. In 2020, the life expectancy in the US decreased 1.5 years, but while white communities only lost 1.2 years, Black and Hispanic communities lost 3 years, and Native Americans lost 4.5 years. COVID disproportionately impacted BIPOC communities due to this concept of weathering; their bodies and health were worn down so much by the stress they experienced that they were at higher risk of contracting the virus, and their communities experienced higher morbidity rates due to existing high rates of chronic illnesses.
Moving Forward – What Solutions Can We Implement?
Moving forward, an effective solution needs to be found to combat this phenomenon, both decreasing the stress present in the lives of Black people and helping them live longer and healthier lives. However, while the initial instinct may be to simply provide people of color with more money and access to education, this will not have lasting change. It is not the state of being in poverty that impacts Black communities so severely, but the struggle to break out of it. In order to truly address weathering and health disparities in the Black community, we need to look at the systems in place that perpetuate discrimination to communities of color and keep them trapped in cycles of poverty and reform and reshape them in a way that supports them and does not overlook their issues. Holistic healing practices and community support groups have also been found to be effective; by reminding Black Americans of their historical healing practices and providing them with a community that understands and supports them, much of the stress in their daily lives can be alleviated.