Intersectionality Impacts Survivorship: Identity-Informed Recommendations to Improve the Quality of Life of African American Breast Cancer Survivors in Health Promotion Programming
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Recruitment and Sample
2.2. Data Collection
2.3. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Characteristics of Participants
3.2. Focus Group Findings
3.2.1. Theme 1. Caregiving Roles Provide Both Support and Challenges for Survivors
“Because I tell my grand babies I live for them. They is what gives me joy. They is what give me the strength I need because when I feel depressed, I feel lonely, I feel like I don’t want to go outside, I don’t want to make no phone call, I got to keep it real … And then when I get that phone call or they just pop up at my door, there it is. It’s like … something just click. You know what I’m saying? And my grandkids is what give me life. And I tell them that all the time, ‘I live for y’all. Y’all give me the strength, the joy that I need to keep keeping on.’”
“‘Go back, grandma. You gonna fall out and who gonna pick you up! … Go back, grandma … it’s slick out here,’ he can tell me, ‘You gonna fall and who gonna pick you up?’ I said, ‘You gonna get me up…’ But I- it’s- that keeps me going.”
“Yup. I did, because I put my foot down with my son and told him … ‘You got to come get your kids. I’ve gotta bathe them, I gotta feed them. I’m getting old, tired, whatever.’ And I’m like that, getting so I can’t go through this … I can’t cuz I get too tired. I be so tired … I said, ‘Y’all gonna send me to my grave early.’”
“My stuff is always, my husband’s, nothin’s never wrong. They always pass it all on to me. Um. I don’t know. I work every day. I take care of my mom. She’s 94. And I’m not, I’m busy doin’ whatever I need to do. Drive. Do normal. Men think we’re invincible, so, you know, do what you have to do.”
3.2.2. Theme 2. The Strong Black Woman Is Inherent in Survivor Experiences
“Because even through all this I’m goin through I still manage to be there for my sister, my family. You know, I’m doin that. Because I’m strong enough to do it. Even when I was like really sick and from like all we need to be, I was out there tryin to do somethin’.”
“I didn’t want to hurt them. And I didn’t tell anybody in the family … Because I was afraid I would devastate them … And I lived with it for that year and then when I did tell them, that devastated them more.”
“I couldn’t come out my house for almost two years … after that … I was having really panic attacks and instead like I would just get really hot. It felt like, you know how you could be in a, uh, the lunchroom, how you just hear voices, just you hear everything everybody is saying…”
3.2.3. Theme 3. Intersectionality Impacts Survivorship
“I don’t mind exposing his name because he deserved exposing, Dr. XX at the time, was at the XYZ hospital but wouldn’t come and see me. And um, so I got out of the hospital and I went to his office and I asked why didn’t you come and see me. He said “Well, there’s nothing we can do for you.” And my husband was like “Man, you her doctor, why wouldn’t you come and at least check in on your patient, and we actually saw you walking around the hall and you totally ignored her.”
‘’I had that experience with one of my oncologists when I went through my cancer thing and it really, really hurt my feelings just the fact that he had, didn’t quite acknowledge me, um, you know when I was in his office getting chemo. One day I was sitting for some test that he had referred me to and he walked right past me like he didn’t even know who I was. And you know, seeing his face every day for chemo. So when he did that to me and he didn’t acknowledge the face and then every time I came with him with questions, he just like brushed it off. He- it’s like my family would ask him things about me and what I was going through and he just- he wouldn’t give us answers. He just basically just brushed it off.”
“I don’t know, if you want to do something you have to go so far out, stores have moved out of the neighborhoods … Because it used to be, maybe it still, can you go, you used to be able to go to market, general hospital or whatever, but they’ve moved. All of those things, out of your neighborhood. You don’t have access to it.”
3.2.4. Theme 4. African American Women RESIST Oppression through Culturally Specific Support and Advocacy
“Like my cousin, she throws a pink party every year, and it’s just for people in the family to come, and she has like brassieres and stuff like this just to inform them, educate, because, you know, back in the day it was something you didn’t really know about. You shied away. You thought it was something negative. But there’s more information now. And we have to be that support system. You don’t know who’s next? So you have to build each other up and inform. We’ve got to get this education.”
“You know, I’ma live or die, but so in the meanwhile, it’s full, the doors open for me to challenge whatever I face and my family faces and my community faces that I don’t think is right. So, it gave me a voice and that was the part about staying strong because in order to have a voice, you have to stay strong.”
4. Discussion
Limitations
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Garza, R.H.; Williams, M.Y.; Ntiri, S.O.; Hampton, M.D.; Yan, A.F. Intersectionality Impacts Survivorship: Identity-Informed Recommendations to Improve the Quality of Life of African American Breast Cancer Survivors in Health Promotion Programming. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 12807. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912807
Garza RH, Williams MY, Ntiri SO, Hampton MD, Yan AF. Intersectionality Impacts Survivorship: Identity-Informed Recommendations to Improve the Quality of Life of African American Breast Cancer Survivors in Health Promotion Programming. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(19):12807. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912807
Chicago/Turabian StyleGarza, Rose Hennessy, Michelle Y. Williams, Shana O. Ntiri, Michelle DeCoux Hampton, and Alice F. Yan. 2022. "Intersectionality Impacts Survivorship: Identity-Informed Recommendations to Improve the Quality of Life of African American Breast Cancer Survivors in Health Promotion Programming" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 19: 12807. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912807