Culturally sensitive health interventions have proven to be vitally important for the elimination of the health disparities that Black Americans face. The purpose of this study was to illuminate the role and importance of health behavior racial typicality and racial identification in how Black Americans view and engage in health behaviors. Black Americans completed racial identity measures and rated a variety of both health-promoting and health-compromising behaviors on whether they were more typical of Blacks or Whites (i.e., racial typicality), personal importance, and frequency of engagement. Results indicated the extent to which health behaviors were viewed as relatively more descriptive of Blacks (rather than Whites) was associated with higher perceived importance and greater frequency of engagement, particularly among those reporting higher levels of nationalist racial identification. Finally, health behavior importance mediated the relationship between racial typicality of the behavior and engagement in the behavior. The results of the study are discussed in terms of their implications for providing empirical support for the necessity of culturally tailored interventions in eliminating Black American health disparities.
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