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Women's Health Collective Lab

Welcome to the Women’s Health Collective Lab!

The Women's Health Collective (WHC) Lab* is in the University of Illinois Department of Kinesiology and Community Health. Dr. Angela Rose Black developed this research lab in response to the need for personalized prevention and personalized medicine in women's health, also known as Goal 3 of the Vision for 2020 for Women's Health Research (Office of Research on Women's Health, National Institutes of Health, 2010). We at the WHC strive to translate women's insight on their own health into gender-specific, culturally-responsive health promotion initiatives and interventions. We aim to accomplish this by examining how the daily life experiences of underrepresented and underserved women--specifically their family and community roles, coping mechanisms, and self-care practices—are linked to their preventive health care behaviors and health outcomes. Because we recognize that women's health develops within the context of their lives, the WHC considers race, gender, and social class, among other factors, in our analyses. We also rely on an interdisciplinary approach to women's health, including a variety of theoretical/conceptual perspectives and research methodologies:

Theoretical/conceptual perspectives

• Health behavior theories/frameworks Stress-health theories/frameworks
• Culturally-relevant stress-health frameworks (Weathering; John Henryism; Strong Black Woman Script; Superwoman Schema)
• Feminist theory

Research methods

• Qualitative methods (interviews, focus groups, content analyses of popular media narratives) to explore women's thoughts, feelings and beliefs
• Q-methodology to understand how women’s subjective thoughts and beliefs translate into health behaviors
• Quantitative analyses (SEM, regression) to highlight predictive pathways between a variety of determinants and women’s health
• Mixed methods research

*The Women's Health Collective Lab is funded in part by the Building Interdisciplinary Research in Women's Health (BIRCWH) Program, Grant Number K12HD055892, sponsored by the Office of Research on Women’s Health, National Institutes of Health. Learn more about this program).