Eric Moreno is a Content Curator with the Salud America! program at UT Health San Antonio. He specializes in covering the topics of health equity and family and social support. He holds a BA from the University of Texas at San Antonio and an MA from Gonzaga University.
Drinking water increase health and hydration, but clean water is not always easy to get to. Recognizing this basic human need and the importance that water plays in overall health, Hillsborough County, Fla. (26% Latino population) has installed 60 water bottle filling stations—also called "hydration stations"—throughout the community. Attached to already existing water fountains, the stations have been installed at libraries, community centers, and public schools and parks, ABC Action News reports. In Hillsborough County, each station costs roughly $1,200 to install. “It's good that we have these stations,” said area resident Andres Gonzalez in an interview with ABC. “Easy and quick and efficient for us. Kind of a grab and go thing.” Latino kids ages 0-5 ...
More Latinos are heading to college than ever before. The bad news is that the high cost of higher education often stands in the way of Latinos completing their college degrees. In fact, many students have to choose between tuition or food and housing. For example, 31% of Latino students are hungry, according to a study. A staggering 14% of students at 70 community colleges in 24 states were homeless, according to a survey by the HOPE Lab at the University of Wisconsin. Also 32,000 college applicants were in 2015-2016 identified as “unaccompanied homeless youth” on federal student aid forms, according to The New York Times. Los Angeles (49% Latino population) is a microcosm of college hunger+homelessness. Homeless & Hungry Currently, one in five of 230,000 ...
For over 50 years, Don Francisco has been delighting Latino audiences on TV as the legendary host of Sabado Gigante and Don Francisco Presenta. Now, he is using his influence to help launch a new campaign to help dispel the myths surrounding type 2 diabetes and insulin treatment. The initiative, called Basado en Hechos (Based on Facts), will allow Don Francisco to travel the country and talk about his own experience living with type 2 diabetes. The program was created by a partnership between Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly and Company. “I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 16 years ago, and at that time I believed many things about diabetes that weren't correct,” said Don Francisco in a news release. “These misconceptions prevented me from making the best decisions ...
Nearly 1 in 5 Latinos suffers a mental health problem. But Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups are less likely than whites to seek out treatment for mental health conditions. Why? How can we help? To celebrate Minority Mental Health Awareness Month in July, let's use #SaludTues on July 25, 2017, to tweet about Latino mental health issues, resources, and solutions! WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “Minority Mental Health Awareness Month”
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET (12-1 p.m. CT), Tuesday, July 25, 2017
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludToday
CO-HOSTS: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (@afspnational), National Alliance on Mental Illness (@NAMICommunicate), The U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services Office of Minority Health ...
Education is one of the key social determinants of health. It has been tied to a person’s overall health, long-term financial well-being, and job attainment. Latinos have made great strides in education in recent years, with high-school dropout rates at an all-time low and enrollment in colleges and universities at all-time highs. However, for many Latino families, one barrier that keeps them from obtaining quality education is simply a lack of knowledge of the overall system. In Memphis, TN (6.69% Latino population), a group of parents banded together to help Latino families in keep up with the city’s fast-changing education landscape. They created Spanish-speaking classes as part of the Memphis Lift’s Public Advocate Fellowship. “Our mission is to make the powerless ...
From burgers to carne asada, Latinos eat more beef or red meat than any other racial/ethnic group, according to the USDA. That isn't a good thing for health, research shows. Red meat and processed meat, like bacon and hot dogs, have been linked to certain types of cancer and cardiovascular disease—the two top causes of death for Latinos. USDA dietary guidelines even recently recommend cutting back on red meat in exchange for other proteins, dark green leafy vegetables, whole grains, and fruits. Here's a few ways meat-lovers can achieve these guidelines. Limiting red meat The American Heart Association recommends that people limit lean beef, skinless chicken and fish to less than six ounces per day. "In general, red meats (beef, pork and lamb) have more cholesterol ...
Latinos report the highest levels of stress among groups, due to money, employment, and family and health issues, according to the recent American Psychological Association (APA) annual Stress in America survey. When it comes to stress and mental health, Latinos often go untreated or undiagnosed. Persistent stress in young children can become toxic, according to new research from the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. This toxic stress has been shown to cause “brain changes” that can interfere with learning and lead to more problems in adulthood. The research was unable to pinpoint exactly how many children have been harmed to date by toxic stress, but the data showed that many live in circumstances that experts say “put them at risk.” Other findings ...
Bullying can stress a Latino child's emotions and mental health, and can contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes. That's bad enough. But bullying also can keep a child from attending school and impact the finances of school districts across the country, according to a new study by UT Austin, Medline reports. About 10% of kids in California (38.39% Latino population) missed at least one day of school in a month because they felt "unsafe" due to bullying, according to the study. That's about 301,000 kids missing school. And California schools—which get funding based on student attendance instead of total enrollment like in many other states—lose in excess of $275 million in funding each year when these bullied kids stay home. “Bullying ...
As long as there have been movies, characters have smoked on the big screen, too. But as the public became more aware of the consequences of using tobacco, attitudes changed and usage of tobacco products in films dwindled. Until recently. The amount of U.S. movies showing tobacco use jumped 80% in 2016 compared to films in 2015, according to a new CDC report from the Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down! project, which has tracked tobacco usage in movies since 1991, CNN reports. Nearly half of 2016's top-grossing movies showed people using tobacco, which could boost youth smoking rates among youth, particularly Latinos. Lights, Camera, Smoke? The new report examined top-grossing films from 1991 to 2016 on their use of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, hookahs, smokeless tobacco, and ...
