A Qualitative Exploration of Physical and Emotional Wellness Among Middle-Class Black Women

Background: In general, the mental health literature often focuses on the Black population’s risk factors for physical and mental health problems. Rarely do studies privilege the voices or explore physical and emotional wellness among Black women, particularly middle-class Black women. Research has shown that social class is an important factor in life. Studies also provide some evidence for the “diminishing returns” hypothesis; as education levels increase, Blacks do not have the same improvement in self-reported overall health as Whites. In fact, Blacks have worse overall health outcomes because of increased opportunities for exposure to discrimination. Thus, it is imperative to understand factors that protect and promote health among middle-class black women who are often exposed to discrimination. The purpose of this study is to explore middle-class Black women’s perspectives on physical and emotional wellness.

Methods: Thirty in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Black women between the ages of 30-45 who are middle-class status based on their education level, income, and occupation. Women were recruited using a mix of the following strategies: participant driven sampling methods (i.e., snowball sampling), social media outlets such as Facebook, emailing flyers to various social groups that predominantly served middle-class Black women (e.g., Black female sororities and Black female professional organizations), and posting flyers throughout primarily Black communities and businesses that served a large proportion of middle-class Black women. Interviews focused on questions that elicited the women’s views on physical and emotional wellness. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed and coded using the constant comparative method of grounded theory.

Findings: Findings elucidate middle-class Black women’s experiences with physical and emotional wellness that extends beyond an illness narrative. Nearly all stories the women shared highlighted the various ways that their perspectives on wellness intersected with their sociocultural identities. The women’s conceptualization of physical and emotional wellness had three dimensions—(a) Black women valued social support; (b) Self-care was an essential practice of protection from many burdens and expectations they withstood in their lives; and (c) Being authentic—and provided an important form of self-acceptance that had a positive effect on their physical and mental health. Collectively, these three core categories informed the perspectives middle-class Black women associated with their physical and emotional wellness, which was ultimately situated at the intersection of their sociocultural contexts.

Conclusion and Implications: Wellness and middle-class Black women is an understudied topic, but it is imperative to identify protective factors of their health to ensure their overall well-being, as well as their families. Given the findings that social support and self-care is valued among this population, practitioners should help to facilitate those supports and behaviors in order to foster well-being. Findings also suggest the need for further investigations that explore the unique ways in which sociocultural factors influence middle-class Black women’s perceptions of physical and emotional wellness.