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Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to identify health disparities experienced in the African American population that could be impacted by increased incidence of breastfeeding.
Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to identify five focus areas of importance to African American women and breastfeeding.
Problem and Significance: African Americans in the United States have higher risk for many diseases, and higher incidences of many chronic health conditions that lead to poor health outcomes when compared to white and Hispanic/Latino populations including. Evidence in the literature strongly suggests that breastfeeding could have a positive impact on reducing many health disparities experienced by African Americans; yet, African American women continue to be the least likely population to engage in breastfeeding in the United States.
Review of Literature: The review of literature revealed five focus areas of importance to African American women and breastfeeding including: disparity of information regarding breastfeeding relayed by health care providers, factors affecting prenatal breastfeeding intentions, factors affecting initiation and duration of breastfeeding, community and institutional interventions related to breastfeeding duration, and weakness of breastfeeding promotional campaigns targeted to the African American population.
Implications for Research: The Sequential Consensual Qualitative Design (Groleau et al., 2009) is a qualitative methodology proposed to explore the breastfeeding experiences of African American women. This three stage design encourages an ethnocentric focus that exclusively explores African American women’s breastfeeding experiences with the aim of discovering not simply what, but how and why certain cultural and environmental factors affect the breastfeeding decisions made by African American women.
Groleau, D., Zelkowitx, P., & Cabral, I.V. (2009). Enhancing generalizability: Moving from an intimate to a political voice. Qualitative Health Research, 19(3), 416-426.