EDITOR'S NOTE: “Who's Lobbying for Black Health?” is the fourth of BlackAmericaWeb’s six-part Operation Healthy Us series. Coming Monday: life-and-death struggles with obesity.

Click here for “Operation Healthy Us, Part One: 'Take a Loved One to the Doctor' Day.”
Click here for "Operation Healthy Us, Part Two: Healing After the Trauma of Katrina."
Click here for "Operation Healthy Us, Part Three: Keeping Track of Our Medical History."

While a number of large health-care organizations are partnering with black groups to educate the community about prescription medications, doctors and community clinics, Dr. Robert Atwell, president of the National Association of Black Psychologists, told BlackAmericaWeb.com that black groups like the National Black Nurses Association, the National Association of Black Social Workers and others are all focusing more on ensuring that health care is affordable and accessible for black Americans.

But, he stressed, healthy living starts in every black home.

"We have to look at ourselves," Atwell said. "The solution rests with us. We can’t look to others to take care of us. We have to look out for ourselves."

Medical experts said Wednesday that the black community must take greater responsibility for its own health -- stop smoking, exercise, hide the hot sauce, and control emotional responses to discrimination -- to improve the overall quality of black lives.

"We have to change our behavior," Atwell said in an interview. "We drink too much, smoke too much, eat the wrong foods and don’t exercise. We can change racial disparities by changing our behavior."

Black Americans are suffering -- and dying -- disproportionately from a range of diseases, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease high blood pressure and complications resulting from obesity, Atwell said. Blacks are also are far more likely to rely on hospitals or clinics for their normal care than are white Americans. Moreover, recent evidence indicates that bias, prejudice, and stereotyping on the part of health care providers contribute to racial disparities and poor health care for black Americans.

For the past 30 years, the National Association of Black Social Workers has addressed the needs of black Americans. Today, the organization is also providing immediate service for displaced survivors of Hurricane Katrina with HIV, according to the group’s website.

"We have to develop our own resources and bring more black people into the health-care field," Dr. Bettye Davis Lewis, president of The National Black Nurses Association, told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Lewis, who has worked in the medical field for 30 years, said black health-care providers must share information -- and resources -- with black patients. And in Lewis’ case, it’s personal: she’s sharing her Houston home with 18 black survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

"We have to help them," Lewis said, "because they still have aspirations, faith and hope."

Lewis said the NBNA, which represents 150,000 black nurses across the country, often lobbies congressional leaders and local officials on behalf of black patients. Lewis added she has a close relationship with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, (D-TX) an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s health-care policies.

Atwell said black Americans must also focus more on emotional well-being. He said too many black folks are overwhelmed, stretched thin and often work themselves into the ground before seeking medical attention.

"We refuse to take breaks," he said. "You don’t have to bleed two pints of blood before you ask for medical help."

Several major health organizations have recently partnered with historical groups in the black community. Last year, for example, Pfizer Inc. formed a three-year pact with the NAACP.

The three-year, $1 million partnership between Pfizer and the nation’s oldest civil rights organization formalizes a long-standing relationship and will now accelerate distribution of health-care research and development of national advocacy programs for black Americans, officials said.

A DVD promoting HIV/AIDS prevention among black women is one of the first national projects developed in the unprecedented collaboration between the NAACP and Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drug company.

With heart disease listed as a leading cause of death among black Americans, several prominent health care experts told BlackAmericaWeb.com they hope a new heart therapy drug for black patients will significantly reduce the number of needless deaths among black Americans.

BiDil, which was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, was manufactured specifically to treat blacks for heart failure. The controversial medication has generated an intense public debate.

More than 700,000 blacks suffer from heart failure, a condition in which the heart loses its pumping ability. A study of 1,050 African-American heart failure patients showed that BiDil reduced deaths by 43 percent.

In January, members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with President George W. Bush at the White House and listed racial disparities in health care as a key domestic issue the president should address. Since then, congressional members have expressed frustration at the administration’s failure to increase funding to address critical problems.

"We need to know where every penny is being spent in our community," Dr. Lucy Perez, national health director for the NAACP, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "We have to be creative and step up because we can’t expect others to make decisions for us."

Perez is a vocal advocate for equity in health care and often lobbies congressional leaders as well as the nation’s medical community.

Atwell said black people must "raise hell" with congressional leaders and demand equality in health care. But he added that blacks can immediately address some of their own concerns.

For example, he said, one leading cause of death among black men under the age of 35 is violence, not disease. He said black people -- and particularly black men -- are in need of treatment for emotional distress, but either do not have the money for therapy or have a deep distrust of the white medical system.

"We kill each other," Atwell told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "Black men are in pain, and, in some cases, black men are reacting to years of institutional racism and chronic habitual insults. But it’s how we react to that pain that’s a concern. This is a major issue in our community."

For blacks who live in constant emotional uphaval, and for the thousands of black folks who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Atwell said mental health counseling can help replace the "informal" support networks that were washed away by the floodwaters in New Orleans -- the beauty shops, barber shops and black churches, longstanding institutions where blacks have historically taken their problems.

"They lost everything that makes them who they are," Atwell explained. "We’re scrambling to get these needs addressed, and it’s important that black therapists get access to black people to provide the mental health care they need.

"But the truth is," he added, "if we sent every black psychologist, every black psychiatrist, every black social worker and every black nurse into the field, we’d still come up short. There’s just not enough of us."