Public health advocate to speak at University of Iowa Oct. 8

Byllye Avery has been on the front lines of the women's health movement since the 1970s - leading grass-roots efforts and exploring the health needs of black women.

The founder of the Black Women's Health Imperative, she has spent the past four decades speaking on black women's health experiences in America - highlighting the effects of poverty, crime, violence and racism.

Avery will present the 2015 Hansen Distinguished Lecture, 'Why Black Women's Health Matters,” Oct. 8 at the University of Iowa. The free lecture begins at 10 a.m. in Callaghan Auditorium in the College of Public Health building.

A panel discussion will follow.

The death of Avery's 33-year-old husband in 1970 led her down the public health path, she said, explaining that it made her think more about her own health and how little she knew about it.

'We were educated. We had degrees,” she said during a telephone interview. 'But I didn't know much about it.”

Soon after, she co-founded the Gainesville, Fla., Women's Health Center and Birthplace, a midwifery birthing center, known today as the Birth and Wellness Center. During that time, she said she noticed that black women were less likely to take advantage of well-woman services than their white counterparts.

'So I researched it and was dismayed with the statistics I found,” she recalled.

Black women have higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, stroke and breast cancer mortality. They have higher infant-mortality rates than non-Hispanic whites.

Avery wanted to bring women together to discuss their health. In 1983 she helped host the first National Women's Health Network conference at Spelman College in Atlanta that attracted more than 2,000 women.

'We need to stop looking at unhealthy black women and focus on what happens with healthy black women,” she said.

Once those habits and traits are identified, it's easier to put infrastructures in place to encourage healthy outcomes.

'It's all about what we say to them,” she said, 'and how do we make it meaningful?”