"A Much Wider Field in Which to Operate": Early Black Women Physicians in Public Health.

This article examines the pivotal role Black women physicians played in shaping public health in the United States from the nineteenth through the twentieth centuries, despite facing systemic racism and sexism within the predominantly White, male medical profession. Constrained from many traditional medical specialties and clinical spaces, these physicians embraced public health as a means to serve marginalized Black communities, developing innovative programs such as mobile health clinics and community health weeks. They challenged prevailing racial biases in medical statistics and theories of biological inferiority by emphasizing social determinants of health and advocating for structural improvements. Through both formal public health education and grassroots initiatives, Black women physicians expanded the scope of medical practice to include community-wide health promotion and prevention, thereby contesting exclusionary professional norms and contributing enduring practices to the field of public health.