Raising Awareness on the Health Risks of Skin-lightening Practice and Chemical Exposure Using Cultural Lens Approach - Project Summary
Project:
Skin-lightening, whitening, and bleaching products are prolific in Black and Brown communities
throughout the world, but they have had a particularly strong impact in the U.S., Africa and
Asia. Skin-lightening products come in many different forms, including soaps, creams, lotions
and ingestible pills. This is a massive industry: Globally, it’s estimated market value is $8.3
billion, and the U. S. market alone is an estimated $2.3 billion. Given the size of this industry, it
is critical that we raise awareness of the health and psychological impact of these toxic
products. It is highly unregulated, diffuse, and the products are sold in venues from high end
retail stores to community corner stores. Products contain a range of harmful chemicals
including mercury, hydroquinone, and steroids, that promise to lighten skin or reduce dark
spots, but these products can have a range of negative impacts including on a person’s
reproductive and neurological health. We are especially worried about the impact it can have
for women’s health, not only on their reproductive health but also negative kidney effects,
neurological problems and early childhood developmental problems, given what we know
about mercury’s negative developmental impacts. Many consumers are unaware of the
dangers associated with the use or misuse of these products. For example, we have seen
individuals that had higher mercury in their urine due to use of skin-lightening products.
women in Minnesota from the Somali community lost her vision due to mercury exposure from
skin-lighting cream. In order to address this huge health disparity that is disproportionately
impacting communities of color we need to get support to expand the current outreach and
education we are doing to combat skin-lightening and chemical exposures. The use of these
products is also driven by colorism, where social and racial pressures lead to feelings of
inadequacy or internalized racism. Thus, educational efforts for communities must address the
root causes of this issue, consider how to uplift and communicate messages of diverse beauty
standards and community strength, while also communicating specific information about
health harms from chemicals.
Project Activities:
We have learned that cultural specificity and trust is critical to this work. Communities receive
information in diverse formats-- from trusted community health workers, cultural brokers, local
language media, and community leaders. Most communities utilizing these products do not
refer to public health websites or the FDA websites. Thus, we propose to produce content in
three formats-- an infographic, short form videos, and local language news media. Also, we will
be developing an animated video that will be translated into three languages: Somali, Spanish
and Hmong. Both short and longer videos we will translate messages into several languages.
We plan to make five videos. In the past and currently our work through Beautywell is
community-based work and we work to respond to the specific needs of each community that
is impacted by skin-lightening practices and chemical exposures.
