By Timiya S. Nolan, PhD, APRN-CNP, ANP-BC, Joshua J. Joseph, MD, MPH, and Darrell M. Gray II, MD, MPH

By the year 2045, those identifying as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) will no longer be the minority of the U.S. population (U. S. Department of Commerce Economics Statistics Administration, 2017). BIPOC, specifically Black or African American people, also face higher rates of morbidity and mortality than non-Hispanic White people related to chronic diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

On the tombstone of Fannie Lou Hamer, a leader in the Civil Rights Movement who died of complications from hypertension and breast cancer, it says “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Although Mrs. Hamer’s famous quote was in the context of living under the tyranny of the South’s Jim Crow, her sentiments are salient for African American women today. Oddly enough, the twentieth century issues that Fannie Lou Hamer and other civil rights leaders fought and shed their blood for are ever present in the twenty-first century.

Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk, PhD, RN, CPNP/PMHNP, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN, has been awarded a $3.3 million, 4.5-year R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIH/NIMHD) for a study entitled, “Healthy Lifestyle Intervention