Breastfeeding Medicine and Studies on the Black/African American Experience and Breastfeeding: Part 2

Breastfeeding Medicine is once again honored and privileged to be dedicating a special issue focusing on the continuing disparities of breastfeeding rates in the Black/African American community as compared with general public. Guest edited by Dr Sahira Long, associate professor of pediatrics, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Science, Children's National Hospital, this issue, Part 2, presents a combination of additional original research, editorial analyses, and epidemiological surveys of the status of breastfeeding in the Black/African American community with an acknowledgment of the continuing negative impact of structural racism and the need for the development of a true measure of equity and justice.

Part 1 was published in February of this year to coincide with Black History Month. To date, there have been well >10,000 full texts down loads of the published articles. This response, no doubt, reflects a measure of the importance and significance of the data and perspective relating to this ongoing U.S. public health tragedy that Breastfeeding Medicine published.

Part 2, this June issue, coincides with the celebration of Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the actual emancipation of those who had been last enslaved in the United States. Symbolically, this celebration of the newly won freedom and liberation from the tyrannical slave milieu and culture is reflected in articles that highlight the initiatives of parts of the Black/African American community to initiate and develop community-based breastfeeding advocacy and support programs.

Breastfeeding Medicine, in its publishing of this special two-part issue, hopes that by providing a forum for highlighting the major health care disparities that continue to afflict Black/African American community, society as a whole both will acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and will lend more than a token hand in rectifying this dismal state of affairs.