Some women have low breast cancer screening rates. Even if they are screened, they delay confirmatory diagnosis and treatment because of costs, language issues, competing responsibilities, and more. That’s why Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, professor and director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at UT Health San Antonio, is offering the Navegando Salud patient navigator program, which trains bilingual community health workers to offer breast cancer screenings, education and other services to women in South Texas. Navegando Salud just received a one-year, $100,000 grant from the Avon Foundation. The grant was among 10 announced at the 12th Annual Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Houston on April 13, 2014. “We’re honored to receive this grant, which will help ...
Only 5% percent of Latinos participate in federal clinical trials, far less than their 19.5% makeup of the US population. This gives researchers fewer chances to find new cancer treatments for this population, which can benefit all people. What can a health agency do to get more people into clinical trials? A new guide, Clinical Trials Outreach: Program Replication Manual, developed by researchers at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at UT Health San Antonio, was created to help health agencies reach into communities and increase participation in cancer clinical trials to better reflect the US population. With the guide, a health agency can: Learn about cancer clinical trials;
Learn about donation of biospecimens (human materials such as skin, hair, and ...
Growing up in Spain, Dr. Marta Katalenas ate home-cooked meals made with fresh ingredients. When she moved to the United States in 1984 to learn English and become a pediatrician, she saw a different way of life that included way more treats, especially sugary juices and drinks. As she began her practice, she said she saw a growing association between kids drinking too much sugar and being overweight. Dr. Katalenas decided that if she was going to help parents set their kids on a path of health, she needed to get the whole community involved in reducing sugary drink consumption—so she made reducing sugary drinks part of her new monthly health challenge for families.
The Issue of Sugary Drinks and Obesity Awareness: Spain native Dr. Marta Katalenas, who moved to the U.S. ...
Unpaved roads. Lack of proper sewage. Inadequate water. Rose A. Treviño-Whitaker grew up among these third-world conditions that plague some colonias—mostly unincorporated settlements in South Texas. That’s why she is dedicating her career to preventing disease and promoting public health as a researcher at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at UT Health San Antonio. She’s particularly interested in increasing physical activity. “Regardless of the neighborhood conditions I grew up in, I still led an active lifestyle. My sisters and I still went outside and had a great time playing soccer in the streets with the other neighborhood kids,” Treviño said. “It is hard to see that this is not the case anymore, in my old neighborhood and all over the U.S. ...
Yoga can help cancer survivors get active and improve their current and future health. That's the idea behind a new $500 mini-grant for the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at UT Health San Antonio to start a yoga therapy program for Support Lending for Emotional Well-Being (SLEW), a non-profit wellness center for women who have been diagnosed with cancer. The grant, from the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the UT Health San Antonio, will allow the team to develop an “Exercise for Cancer Survivors” educational presentation and a yoga program/curriculum that will gradually introduce participants to yoga and be sustainable for SLEW to continuing using upon the grant’s end. The project leader at the IHPR is Rose A. Treviño-Whitaker and the project ...
After realizing that patients were not participating in regular physical activity, clinicians at the Community Health and Social Services (CHASS) Center in the Mexicantown neighborhood of Detroit decided to try something different to get residents moving. Physicians like Maricela Castillo and Richard Bryce teamed up with local organizations to host the neighborhood’s first-ever 5K race. Because the 5K entry was made affordable, many of the 200 participants were CHASS patients. The clinic plans to make the 5K an annual event as a means to promote its other nutrition and fitness programs for patients.
The Need for More Physical Activity for Children
Awareness/Learn: The Community Health and Social Services Center (CHASS) is a nonprofit clinic that provides affordable health care ...
A group of Texas Tech University students wanted to get some hands-on coaching experience. Jeff Key, an instructor at Texas Tech, worked to give the students in-class instruction and an opportunity to coach/teach and do community service at the same time—a unique effort that resulted in the development of after-school fitness and mentoring programming at McWhorter Elementary School in Lubbock, Texas.
The Issue of Physical Activity and Obesity
Awareness: Jeff Key, an instructor and coordinator of community outreach for the Department of Health, Exercise Science, and Sport Sciences at Texas Tech University (TTU), knew that obesity was a problem among the community. He was especially concerned with how it was affecting younger generations. “We were concerned that almost 35% of ...
I recently had the privilege of attending and presenting my Susan G. Komen-funded research on boosting breast cancer survivorship through Patient Navigation at the 5th International Cancer Control Congress (ICCC) on Nov. 3-6, 2013, in Lima, Peru. As a member of Komen’s Scientific Advisory Board, I was excited to be among the more than 400 health researchers and community leaders from throughout the world came together for this important meeting. Dr. Simon Sutcliffe of Vancouver, Canada, president of the ICCC and chair of the international steering committee, cited five key drivers for the group: improving human development;
mobilizing a societal response to reduce cancer and other non-communicable diseases;
improving population health;
improving cancer treatment, ...
Salud America! today released six Spanish-language animated videos that shed light on the causes of solutions to childhood obesity. The videos, which are also available in English, explore the latest research into how six critical topics—marketing, school snacks, sugary drinks, neighborhood food environments, active play and access to active spaces—impact child health. The videos also feature evidence-based recommendations on how to address the problem. The child-narrated videos are part of a six new packages of research materials produced by Salud America!, a national research network on childhood obesity that is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Each topic’s package contains: a research review, an assessment of all available scientific evidence on ...
