HealthTALK

Why Sickle Cell Disease Is a Workplace Issue, Not Just a Health One.

Every September, Sickle Cell Awareness Month asks the public to understand a condition that has been part of Black communities for generations but has only recently started getting the attention, funding and workplace consideration it deserves.

For Black women in particular, who are disproportionately likely to be both patients and primary caregivers, sickle cell disease (SCD) sits at an exhausting intersection. An invisible illness, layered onto a healthcare system that too often does not believe their pain, layered onto workplaces that were not built with fluctuating, unpredictable conditions in mind.

Invisible Illness Meets Invisible Bias

SCD is the UK's most common and fastest-growing genetic blood disorder, affecting an estimated 15,000–17,500 people, with around 250 new cases diagnosed each year. It predominantly affects people of Black African and Caribbean heritage. The disease itself is punishing. Rigid, sickle-shaped red…

Let’s Talk

What Sexual Health Week 2026 Means for Our Community.

Sexual Health Week is a UK-wide campaign, currently led by the charity Brook, running 14–20 September 2026 under the theme "Let's Connect!" It is about rebuilding real conversations with partners, with our children, with ourselves. In a culture of ghosting, scrolling and half-truths picked up online.

For the NBWN, this is not an abstract awareness week. It sits directly on top of data that shows Black women, on both sides of the Atlantic, carry a disproportionate share of the burden and the reasons are structural, not behavioural.

The Evidence

When Was the Last Time You Saw a Black Child With Down Syndrome in a Doctor's Waiting-Room Poster?

If the answer is "never," you have just found the gap that four mothers spent years fighting to close.

Black children with Down syndrome do not appear in the pamphlets, the research studies or  the campaign imagery that shape how families understand a diagnosis. That invisibility is not a coincidence and  it is not harmless. It shapes who gets diagnosed early, who gets referred to specialists on time and  who survives longer.

Oneness Sankara, Marsha Martin, Tonye Faloughi-Ekezie and Danise B. Grant refused to let that absence stand and the Black Child Down Syndrome Project they built is now recognised nationally for proving what happens when lived experience becomes advocacy.

The scale of the gap is measurable and the numbers are stark. A 2022 review of parent experiences following prenatal screening for…

Your Next Health Upgrade May Not Be Another Gym Membership.

Something interesting is happening in the way people are thinking about exercise.

In 2026, searches for “how to start running” reached an all-time high. Trail running also reached record search interest, while “walking club” hit a ten-year high. People are searching for Nordic walking clubs and audiobook walking clubs. Padel is attracting newcomers, adult tennis lessons are generating interest and people are not simply asking where they can exercise. They are asking how they can begin.

At first glance, this looks like another fitness trend but if you look more closely it may tell us something much bigger about health, community, race, work and even the way the next generation is choosing to build professional relationships.

For high-achieving women, that deserves attention.