Institute for a Sustainable Earth

Akila-Ka R Ma’at

Groups: Faculty

Research Focus
At Mason, I have had the privilege of starting and directing the Black Interdisciplinary Research Translating and Transforming Health (BIRTTH) Lab. The BIRTTH Lab ultimately seeks the genesis of dynamic collaborative and innovative research that contributes to reducing disease among diverse Black women across the nation. Our central area is the effective communication of mental health, cardiovascular health, and reproductive health content to affect health behavior change that reduces morbidity and mortality among Black women. We are most concerned with intersections of multiple types of racism, intersectional oppression, racial stress, resilience, and health justice in our investigation of Black women’s health and the development of culturally targeted interventions. We use multiple methods in our studies, including community-based participatory research and biospecimen collection.
Current Projects
  • Mobile Health Intervention for Perinatal Black Women: This project is a collaboration with Brittany Johnson-Matthew\’s GMU INSPIRE Lab in the department of computer science. Based on those data collected around internalized racial oppression, racial stressors, and reproductive health outcomes, we will develop a culturally relevant program for clinical implementation. Currently, we are conducting a small project to obtain baseline data on the use of mobile technology for health among Black perinatal women and outcomes associated with its use.
  • Community Assessment of Racial Experiences of Stress (CARES) among Perinatal Black Women: Funded pilot study to develop and test a measure of intersectional racism and racial stressors to assess these factors among perinatal Black women in preparation for a larger study, where we assess intersectional racism, internalized racial oppression, and racial stressors evaluate maternal/infant health outcomes.
  • Cardiovascular Health Justice: Collect baseline data to evaluate the influence of intersectional gendered racisms, including internalized racial oppression, and racial stressors on cardiovascular health conditions and to capture their testimonies to develop womanist-centered, sensemaking intervention to reduce this leading cause of Black women’s mortality. The project depends on the measure of intersectional racisms and stressors being developed in the CARES study.
  • Framing Black Women\’s Resilience with Activism Grounded Theory: Systematic literature review of resilience among Black women. This study will conduct a critical review of resilience studies among Black women over the past 10 years to develop a womanist-centered framework of resilience that this lab can apply to our work and serve the basis for a community-driven evaluation of this framework among diverse Black women to ground it for community and academic practice in addressing racisms and stressors.
  • NHANES Trend Analyses: Two 10-year trend analyses investigating risk factors of women reporting both perinatal and postpartum depression and correlates to cardiovascular disease among Black women, respectively. This research will advance our understanding of contributory factors to each to inform community-based intervention development.