Cliff Despres, who has more than a decade of experience in journalism and public relations, is communications director for Salud America! and its home base, the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio.
COVID-19 takes a big toll on Latinos. To help move Latinos from vaccine hesitancy to vaccine confidence, Salud America! is uplifting the stories of real Latinos who overcame misinformation, got the COVID-19 vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson), reconnected with family, and are helping end the pandemic and variants like Delta and Omicron. Share these “change of heart” heroes in English or Spanish! Update 10/26/22: Dr. Amelie Ramirez, leader of Salud America! at UT Health San Antonio, featured the heroes at the COVID-19 Equity Evidence Academy from the RADx-UP program in September 2022!
Rosa Herrera
Rosa Herrera read on Facebook that the COVID-19 vaccine would inject her with a microchip. What changed her heart? After doing research and learning that ...
Life as a Latino immigrant is stressful. Migration is difficult. Changing immigration rules make it hard to get health-promoting assets. Fear of deportation and family separation add anxiety. Now the COVID-19 pandemic is worsening social and environmental inequities. Who is looking out for the mental health of Latino immigrants? Informed Immigrant, Immigrants Rising, and FWD.us have a 10-step guide to help mental health care providers respond to the distress of immigrants whose status is in flux due to ongoing changes to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, amid coronavirus. "In addition to managing the stress and uncertainty surrounding the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there are around 700,000 immigrant youth who may also be worried and distressed ...
How is your neighbor doing during the coronavirus pandemic? In the Boston area, Anna Kaplan, Jessie Norriss, Sophia Grogan, Miriam Priven, Hannah Freedman, and other neighbors saw their neighbors lose jobs, with no money for bills or groceries. They saw college students and non-English speakers get no support. They each wanted to help their neighbors. So, together, they helped create Mutual Aid Medford and Somerville (MAMAS), an on-the-fly mix of multilingual online documents, Google maps, social media, and text-message threads where neighbors can offer to help, and/or ask for help with grocery deliveries, filing for unemployment, emotional support, and more. Since March 12, 2020, MAMAS has connected over 1,000 neighbors to each other and raised over $90,000 to meet ...
Fewer than 5% of Latinos participate in federal clinical trials. That gives researchers less chance to find treatments that work for this population. Latinos suffer a heavier burden of coronavirus, obesity, and certain cancers. How are we going to make sure new treatments─such as a COVID-19 vaccine─work as well for Latinos and other people of color? Let’s use #SaludTues on Tuesday, April 28, 2020, to discuss how to ensure diversity and inclusion of people of color in research amid the COVID-19 pandemic! WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: How to Ensure Diversity in Research during Coronavirus
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET (Noon-1 p.m. CT), Tuesday, April 28, 2020
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludAmerica
CO-HOSTS: UnidosUS (@WeAreUnidosUS); League of ...
A soda tax aims to reduce sugary drink consumption and boost public health. In a new twist, Seattle is using soda tax revenues to give emergency $800 grocery vouchers for 6,250 families amid the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, Next City reports. City leaders mailed a $400 voucher in March 2020 for families to buy groceries at Safeway. They will send a second $400 voucher this month. Mayor Jenny Durkan called this rapid-response to coronavirus "remarkable." “As schools and child care facilities close, we need to do everything we can to support families and ensure they can put food on the table,” Durkan said, Next City reports.
Sugary drinks do not contribute to good health, especially among Latinos, according to a Salud America! research review.
Let's examine how soda ...
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff announced the addition of Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of Salud America! and the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio, to the COVID-19 Health Transition Team, which is working on a plan to slowly reopen the city economy after physical distancing. Nirenberg and Wolff wrote a joint memo that stay-at-home rules have saved lives. Yet they acknowledge physical distancing isn't permanent. "Our community needs a local strategy to reenter into everyday life," Nirenberg and Wolff wrote. "These decisions have critical implications on our community – including our ability to avoid subsequent outbreaks, ensure we protect our ... populations ... and to identify parameters for transitioning ...
The coronavirus outbreak is making it harder for Latino and other families to get enough food to feed their families, a condition also called food insecurity. Families that rely on food assistance can’t stock up, or shop online, either. Let’s use #SaludTues on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, to discuss how to improve food access and mitigate food insecurity for Latinos and all people during the COVID-19 pandemic! WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: Tackling Latino Food Insecurity amid Coronavirus
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET (Noon-1 p.m. CT), Tuesday, April 21, 2020
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludAmerica
CO-HOSTS: UnidosUS (@WeAreUnidosUS), Food Research and Action Center (@fractweets), and Feeding America Advocacy (@hunger)
HASHTAG: #SaludTues
...
Latino teens are more worried than their peers that they won't be able to keep up with school work or extracurricular activities amid coronavirus, says a new survey by Common Sense and SurveyMonkey. 70% of Latino teens fear falling behind in homework. 62% of Latino teens fear lagging in activities like band and sports. These are far higher percentages of worry about online, distance learning than their white (49% and 53%), black (66% and 54%), and other (40% and 50%) peers. How "real" is this teen angst?
Many Teens Are Not Connecting with Teachers During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Coronavirus has shut down schools and fueled the rise of online, distance learning. But not all teen students regularly communicate with their teachers. One in four teens connect with teachers ...
COVID-19 can affect anyone. But, in reality, it's worsening the health and social inequities facing U.S. Latinos. Now the pandemic is raising fears of racial/ethnic and income disparities in coronavirus exposure, testing, prevention via social distancing, and treatment. "As the number of cases rises, citizens are rightfully concerned about who is getting tested and who will receive treatment," writes health equity adviser Brian Williams in a column for the Dallas Morning News. "For those who exist on the margins of health care justice, access to life-saving treatment is never guaranteed."
Disparities in Coronavirus Exposure
We know Latinos are more likely than their white peers to suffer from poverty, underlying conditions, and a lack of quality housing and transit. They also ...
