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Amanda Merck

Merck completed her MPH with a concentration in Physical Activity and Health. She curates content for Salud America! (@SaludAmerica), a Latino childhood obesity prevention project based at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio. She focuses on the latest research, resources, and stories related to policy, systems, and environmental changes to enhance equitable access to safe places for kids and families to walk, bike, and play.

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Articles by Amanda Merck

Report: Access to Health Care is Improving for Hispanics, but More Work Remains


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Access to health care after the Affordable Care Act is improving among all racial/ethnic groups, especially Hispanics, but more work remains, according to a new report. According to the report, the 2014 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report, the nation's rate of uninsured people has declined. The decline was greater among Hispanics and blacks, who historically have had higher rates of unsiuninsurance rates compared with whites. For Hispanics, the rate of those uninsured dropped from 40.3% to 33.2%, and for blacks dropped from 24.6% to 15.9%. "These findings indicate that the Affordable Care Act's Health Insurance Marketplaces is making health insurance available to millions of Americans who might otherwise have been uninsured," said AHRQ Director Dr. Richard Kronick ...

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#SaludTues Tweetchat 4/14/15: Latinos and Alcohol Awareness and Prevention



Latinos are less likely to drink alcohol at all than non-Latinos. That’s the good news. The bad news? Latinos who choose to drink are more likely to consume higher volumes of alcohol than non-Latinos, and about 8.3% of Latinos needed treatment for alcohol problems in the past year, federal statistics show. For Alcohol Awareness Month (April), let’s use #SaludTues on April 14, 2015, to tweet information, resources, and tips that can help reduce alcohol abuse among Latinos: WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “Alcohol Awareness and Latinos” DATE: Tuesday, April 14, 2015 TIME: 1-2 p.m. ET (Noon-1 p.m. CT) WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues HOST: @SaludToday CO-HOSTS: National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (@NCADDnational), Institute for ...

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32% of Hispanic Teens go Online ‘Almost Constantly’



About 90% of U.S. teens go online daily and 32% of Latino teens go online "almost constantly," a higher rate that white teens (19%) and comparable to black teens (34%), according to a new Pew Research report. Much of this frenzy of access is facilitated by mobile devices. Overall, more than 70% of Latino, black, and white teens ages 13-17 have access to a smartphone, which has become a top driver of teen Internet, texting, and social media use. Patterns of social media use seem to be affected by socioeconomic status, as teens from lesser-income households (those earning less than $50,000) are more likely than others to say they use Facebook the most. Teens from high-higher households are somewhat more likely to visit Snapchat and Twitter more often than those from lesser-income ...

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Watch and Vote: Best Way for Kids to Get Healthy Food



Latinos tend to live in areas with more junk food and sugary drinks, and fewer healthy options. That’s why Salud America! is presenting six new #SaludHeroes who helped bring more nutritious food and drinks to their schools, cities, and even bus stations! WATCH and VOTE for your favorite “#SaludHeroes of Healthy Food and Drinks” by April 29, 2015, and be entered in a random drawing to win a FREE T-shirt and jump rope! #SaludHeroes of healthier food are: Sweeter than Soda. Boston city leaders crafted a campaign to urge residents to choose healthy drinks over sugary beverages because “kids are sweet enough already.” A Salad Rap. Students launched into song because they were so happy with their cool new “fresh food station,” the brainchild of parents in Fairfax ...

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23,000+ People Tell Kellogg’s that Latino Families Want Healthier Food Options!



More than 23,000 people across the nation recently wrote letters to urge the Kellogg Co. to stop marketing sugary foods to Latino families on their Dias Grandiosos website. The letters, which highlighted how Kellogg’s targets Latina moms with cultural- and family-oriented messages for meals that are high in sugar and salt, were collected by Salud America!, a Latino obesity research network funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. Salud America! leaders delivered the 23,000 letters to Kellogg’s this week. We will post their response here in coming days. Why is this effort so important? Food and beverage marketing influences Latino kids’ ...

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Winning Video: Run, Chicago, Run!



Alicia Gonzalez wanted kids to run—a desire that turned into Chicago Run, an group that has gotten more than 16,000 kids moving. Now she's won the Salud America! #SaludHeroes voting contest! Read Gonzalez's story or watch her winning video about how she identified the problem of unfit kids, planned for and mobilized change, and took actions that are helping Latino kids stay fit across Chicago through daily running activities, online mileage trackers, incentives and citywide running events. "I think the excited part of watching Chicago Run over the past six-and-a-half years is that it's really started to engage our communities," Gonzalez said. "It's very simple, easily replicated, and it's not intimidating. "A lot of our kids are coming home and they're feeling better ...

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Latino Health Researchers: Join Workshop on the Study of Public Datasets



Calling all researchers focused on Latino health! You're invited to a professional development workshop June 28-30, 2015, that will help Latino health scholars strengthen their skills in analyzing and studying public health datasets to contribute to the understanding of Latino and other underserved populations. Abstracts for oral and poster presentations at the workshop are being accepted through April 19, 2015, from junior faculty, residents, graduate students, doctoral students, post-doctoral students, and other researchers. The workshop is sponsored and hosted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, ...

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Survey: 6 in 10 U.S. Hispanic Speak English or Are Bilingual


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About six-in-ten U.S. adult Latinos, or 62%, speak English or are bilingual, according to a new analysis of Pew Research Center data. Among U.S.-born Latinos, the vast majority of the second generation speaks English (42%) or is bilingual (50%). By the third generation the percentage of English increases (76%) and bilingual decreases (23%). Foreign-born Latinos are the least likely to speak English (5%), but many are bilingual (35%). What do these data say? It means that, although Latino adults said Latino immigrants need to speak English to succeed while still valuing the ability to speak Spanish, the future of language use in the U.S. is increasingly English and bilingual, according to a Pew report. "And as a sign of the times, Spanglish, an informal hybrid of both ...

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Survey: Health Care Access Improves for Latinos, but Not Among Certain Segments



The number of Latinos with health care coverage has risen dramatically thanks to the Affordable Care Act, but certain groups have lower coverage rates or know little about the health insurance marketplace, according to a new poll. The poll, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico and implemented by Latino Decisions, examined Latinos’ attitudes on immigration policy, the Affordable Care Act, discrimination, and personal connections to immigrants. Only 17% percent of Latinos now lack health insurance, down from 28% in 2013. But a significant gap in health coverage exists when it comes to nativity, with 87 percent of U.S.-born Latinos saying they are covered but only 78 percent of foreign-born Latinos have ...

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