Black History Month, celebrated in October in the UK, is an annual celebration of the impact and contributions that Black people have had on British culture and heritage. The theme for this year's Black History Month is "Saluting our Sisters," highlighting the remarkable contributions of Black women in British history and communities.
In this blog post, we celebrate some of the Black pioneers, especially Black women, who have had significant impact on health and wellbeing for people in the UK. These pioneers, despite facing the challenges of racism and discrimination, persevered and made significant contributions to public health in the UK. The efforts of these pioneers have not only impacted the health and wellbeing of Black communities, they have also improved the health and wellbeing of the UK and global population. They paved the way for a more equitable and inclusive society.
Mary Seacole
Mary Seacole is now a commonly celebrated iconic figure in Black history but this wasn’t always the case and her story highlights the importance of documenting and celebrating the rich history of Black people in the UK. Seacole, a British-Jamaican nurse, is known for her contributions to public health and nursing in the Crimean War during the 1850s. Seacole who was initially rejected to serve as a nurse because of her race funded herself to travel to Crimea where she established the British Hotel as a place of respite for British soldiers. Prior to the Crimean war, Seacole was involved in public health response to the cholera and yellow fever epidemics in Jamaica and cholera epidemic in Panama.
Following her death in 1881, Seacole’s contribution to UK history faded into near “oblivion" for almost a century, but through societal efforts, she is now rightfully remembered and celebrated and was voted the greatest Black Briton in 2014.
Dame Elizabeth Anionwu
Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, of Nigerian/Irish heritage, is a health visitor and the first sickle-cell and thalassemia nurse specialist in the UK. She helped establish the first nurse-led UK Sickle and Thalassaemia Screening and Counselling Centre.
Anionwu, whose upbringing was scarred by racism and abuse has said that she is motivated by the need to see "gaps in service for BME patients and health professionals addressed. In addition to her clinical public health work, substantial amount of Anionwu’s time was spent tutoring Black and Minority Ethnic communities in London. In the late 1990s, she established the Mary Seacole Centre as a way to promote diversity in nursing education, research, and training. Following her retirement, Anionwu has continued to promote the work of Mary Seacole by serving as a life patron of the Mary Seacole Trust. Anionwu was honoured with the Order of Merit in 2022 and a Damehood (DBE) in 2017.
John Alcindor
Dr John Alcindor was born in Trinidad and attended medical school at Edinburgh University in Scotland, graduating in 1899. Alcindor led pioneering research on influenza and tuberculosis in the early 20th century. His research set the groundwork for the correlation between poverty, low-quality food, and poor health. Alcindor was keen to use his skills to help the war efforts during the First World War but like Mary Seacole before him, he was also denied by Royal Army Medical Corps because of his race – something that has been described as a “both racist and self-defeating" Alcindor would later sign up as a British Red Cross volunteer to support the war efforts and was later awarded a Red Cross Medal for his life-saving work. Alcindor would continue to be an activist for racial equality and his contributions to public health in the UK were instrumental in advancing the cause of health equity and fighting against racial disparities.
The above are just some few examples of black people who made significant contributions to improve the health of the UK population and many more continue to do so to this day.
We must also remember that whilst we celebrate the far-reaching contributions that Black people have made to public health in the UK over the centuries, there is much work to be done to dismantle the structures that maintain disparities in health and wellbeing. For example:
- Black women are almost four times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than White women.
- Black babies have almost double the stillbirth rate of White babies in England and Wales.
- Black African and Caribbean women are up to two times more likely to receive a late stage diagnosis for a number of cancers than White British women.
Black women in the UK experience health at the intersection of racism and gender inequality, and a racial justice lens is essential to understanding and addressing the racial disparities in their health outcomes.
We welcome the Faculty of Public Health’s leadership in advocating for a public health approach to tackle racism as a core area of work.
We must continue to dismantle structures of racism and inequalities that exist in our society. We do this by first shining a light on it, recognise it as a public health crisis and work collectively to achieve this goal. Everyone has a role and we can all take personal actions to be inclusive in our daily lives.
Throughout Black History Month 2023, we will continue to celebrate the outstanding contributions of Black people in the UK, with a focus on women, who lead the way and break barriers to advance the public health agenda in our society. You can find out more about them via the social media posts available here:
