How to Fight for Walkable Neighborhoods



What can you do to bring walkable streets to your neighborhood? Follow the example of Nicolas Rivard and Allison Hu. Rivard and Hu, urban designers in San Antonio, noticed that a road construction project in a largely Latino neighborhood was lacking shade, trees, and other walkable streetscape elements because of cost issues. So they organized a multi-pronged effort with neighbors, business partnerships, storytelling, petitions, and more to mobilize support and suggest design-specific elements that could improve the road's walkability—an effort that paid off when the city agreed to add street trees, separated sidewalks, and other streetscape elements to the road. Their work is featured in a new Rivard Report article and Salud Heroes story by Amanda Merck of Salud America!, a ...

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CONTEST: How to Create Super-Healthy Schools



Students consume up to half their daily calories at school. WATCH and VOTE for new Salud America! #SaludHeroes who push healthy food and physical activity at school by April 29, 2016, and be entered in a random drawing to win a FREE T-shirt and jump rope! #SaludHeroes at school are: School Navigators. Rocio Muñoz helped embed bilingual, bicultural health navigators to increase parents’ access to health services into elementary schools in Corvallis, Ore. Breakfast is Back. Michaelie Love, a high-schooler in San Antonio, Texas, worked with her school to get a cart to make eating breakfast easy, healthy and cool. BMX Fun. School principal Doug Johnson used biking and a sweet BMX trail to make physical activity fun for elementary students in Mountlake Terrace, ...

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The Rivard Report and Salud America! Team Up to Keep San Antonio Fit and Healthy



We’re excited to announce that two San Antonio-based organizations, Salud America! and The Rivard Report, are partnering to highlight challenges and solutions to Latino health and obesity. The Rivard Report is a non-profit, non-partisan online news source in San Antonio that tackles city issues and spotlights innovative solutions. Salud America! is a national Latino childhood obesity prevention network based at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind the SaludToday social media campaign. For the partnership, Salud America! will make monthly article contributions to The Rivard Report on new ways to address the rising epidemic of obesity plaguing San Antonio. San Antonio is a historic, culturally rich, and diverse (63.2% Latino) city, but it also is ...

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Make ‘Jugo Verde,’ a Tasty, Healthy Treat for National School Breakfast Week!



Parents, need ideas for a healthy, tasty breakfast? Try the easy-to-make Jugo Verde (Green Juice) by San Antonio Chef Johnny Hernandez! Watch his cooking demo: Jugo Verde (quick version) Jugo Verde (step-by-step instructions and guidance) Chef Johnny conducted the cooking demonstration for a new campaign by Salud America! to promote the importance of nutritious breakfasts at school and at home. For the campaign, we invite you to snap a picture of you and/or your child having breakfast at home or at school and share it using #SaludNSBW / #NSBW16 on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for your chance to win a T-shirt and jump rope! Salud America!, a Latino childhood obesity network funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez of the ...

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Latina Researcher Continues Blazing Leadership Trail



Dr. Deborah Parra-Medina, a Latino health researcher and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, recently became a national research fellow, and is co-leading regional health education centers in South Texas. Parra-Medina was named a Fellow by the American Academy of Health Behavior (AAHB), a national group of researchers who apply study results to improve public health. Fellows are selected for their significant contributions to advancing health behavior knowledge, as well as a strong record of scientific investigations, publications, and presentations. She is being recognized at the AAHB’s scientific meeting Feb. 21-24, 2016, in Florida. Parra-Medina also ...

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CONTEST: Salud Heroes vs. Sugar



Latino kids get too much sugar, but not enough fruits and vegetables. WATCH and VOTE for new Salud America! Salud Heroes who help fight sugar and push fruits/veggies by Feb. 29, 2016, and be entered in a random drawing to win a FREE T-shirt and jump rope! Sugar Bites. County leaders built a toothy bilingual campaign to urge parents to choose water over sugary drinks for kids in Contra Costa, Calif. Is Your Drink Sugar-Packed? Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and health advocates want folks to reevaluate their sugar intake in the San Antonio area. Poets Fight the Fizz. Gabriel Cortez and other young minority poets joined with a health coalition to voice a counter-advertising campaign against sugary drinks in California. Rx for Produce. A clinic teamed up with a farmers market ...

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Salud America! Gets $1.3M to Fuel Healthy Changes that Reduce Latino Childhood Obesity



Salud America!, a national Latino childhood obesity prevention program, has received a one-year, $1.3 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop new, culturally tailored educational content that empowers people to work toward policy changes for the health of Latino children. Established in 2007, Salud America!, has recruited a national online network of 50,000 parents, school personnel, health professionals, and community leaders who support its mission: “End Latino childhood obesity by communicating good health and driving people to start and assist healthy changes in their schools and communities.” Latino children ages 2-19 are more obese/overweight (38.9%) than White (28.5%) and Black (35.2%) children, studies show. They also face barriers in access to ...

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Cancer Centers Urge HPV Vaccination for the Prevention of Cancer



All 69 National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Centers, including the Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio, issued a joint statement on Jan. 27, 2016, urging all children and young adults receive the vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection, affecting 79 million U.S. residents, and causing the vast majority of cervical and other genital cancers, which disproportionately affect Latinos. Even though HPV-related cancers are preventable through a safe and effective vaccine, HPV vaccination rates remain low—a "serious public health threat," according to the Cancer Centers' statement. “HPV vaccination represents a rare opportunity to prevent several types of cancer in ...

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5 Ways to Help Latino Kids Achieve a Healthy Weight by Kindergarten



More Latino kids ages 2-5 are overweight/obese (30%) than white kids (21%). That’s because of maternal obesity, less exclusive breastfeeding, and workplace and childcare issues, according to a new package of research from Salud America!, a national network for Latino childhood obesity prevention funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and based at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. Salud America!’s Healthy Weight by Kindergarten for Latino Kids research shows that half of Latinas are overweight/obese when they get pregnant. Obese Latina moms gave birth to kids who were 1.8 times more likely to be obese than their peers. Breastfeeding can reduce obesity by 47% among Latino kids, but Latina moms are less likely than white moms to exclusively breastfeed their ...

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