Exploring brotherhood at historically black colleges: Implications for wellness interventions

How do young African-American men view their experience with the health care System? Health education and public health literature asserts that African-American men have a significantly higher risk for chronic health illnesses such as prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes, and other forms of cancer than most ethnic groups. Prior efforts to explain this disparity have focused on genetic predisposition, poor education, lack of health insurance, and a general distrust of the medical system among the black community. Is the Health Care system utilized by African-American men? What are the concerns that cause this particular group of men to seek medical and health assistance, and what is the experience like while receiving this assistance? This investigation explores the sociocultural and behavioral characteristics related to wellness within an understudied social phenomenon called brotherhood. Franklin (2004) asserts that brotherhood has a measurable and describable impact upon the health of black men. Method: Ethnographic research utilizing 20 semi-structured interviews with African-American men, 18-35 years old, from two HBCU's in southeastern Texas. Key findings: Brotherhood may moderate multiple dimensions of social support of relationships; brotherhood appears to be both contemporaneously and historically influential on dimensions of social support which influence quality of relationships, help seeking attitudes and behaviors, and decision-making skills associated with utilization of health related services- both preventive and medical care. Brotherhood may function as a “barometer” to help identify self-advocacy intervention strategies that can be used by young African-American males to improve their experiences within a comprehensive continuum of care services.