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Amelie Ramirez

I am director of Salud America! at UT Health San Antonio. I have spent 30 years directing research on human and organizational communication to reduce chronic disease, cancer, and obesity health disparities affecting Latinos.

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Articles by Amelie Ramirez

Future Research: A Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities


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This is part of the Salud America! Achieving a Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities: A Research Review» More Research is Needed on a Cohesive Culture It is important to research the relationship between socioeconomic status and education to identify and reduce the risk factors through the improvement of school systems and the development of intervention programs.5,10 Additional studies are also needed to examine the relationships between implicit bias and health care outcomes. This will provide vital information for the development of interventions that target these implicit biases, which have been shown to contribute to disparities in health care between whites and minority groups such as Latinos. This implicit bias influences individuals’ behavior ...

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Research: In Rural Areas, Latinos Face Poverty and Other Inequities


Latino farmworkers cohesive culture research review

This is part of the Salud America! Achieving a Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities: A Research Review» Disparities in Poverty Exist across Geography Disparities in poverty rates also exist across geography: child poverty rates are highest in rural counties, at 23.2%, compared to large urban metro areas (21.2%), smaller metro areas (20.5%), and suburban counties (14.5%). Race/ethnicity and geography intersect as well. The poverty rate among black and Latino children in suburban counties is higher than it is for white children in rural counties.10 The Latino Poverty Rate in Rural Areas Most of the U.S. Latino population was concentrated in the Southwest until the 1990s, when Latino immigrants began to migrate to rural areas in the South and Midwestern ...

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Mechanism of Discrimination: The Problem of System Justification


Latino man and daughter system justification cohesive culture research review

This is part of the Salud America! Achieving a Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities: A Research Review» System Justification Is a Key Mechanism People Use to Excuse Discrimination among People of Color, Those in Poverty System justification is the label for a social psychology theory asserting that people will rationalize the status quo, as they believe that the social, economic, and political systems must be fair and advantageous, otherwise they would not be in place.55 In other words, the theory states that there is a general subjective motive justifying the existing socioeconomic order; that motive is partially responsible for creating and maintaining the inferiority of racial/ethnic and other minority groups and is largely implicit; and the motive may ...

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Strategy for Equitable Change: Intergroup Contact Theory


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This is part of the Salud America! Achieving a Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities: A Research Review» Intergroup Contact Theory At the individual level, the contact hypothesis of social psychology, also called the intergroup contact theory, proposes that members of one group, having incomplete or inaccurate ideas about members of another group, can positively change their beliefs and attitudes toward that group via contact, whether face-to-face or through other interactive methods such as computer-mediated communication.75 Using Intergroup Contact to Address Compassion for Immigrants Joyce and Harwood75 recruited students from communications classes at a large university in Arizona to participate in an intergroup contact study. Of the 147 participants, ...

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Strategy for Equitable Change: Effective Communication


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This is part of the Salud America! Achieving a Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities: A Research Review» The Power of Effective Communication Strengthening communication is important as well for promoting compassion for those of color and those in poverty. Baron and Jacksteit 84 developed a method to establish productive conversation patterns between people who have difficulty communicating due to negative perceptions or stereotypes, polarizing views, and distrust. The method attempts to facilitate conversations that allow the participants to truly understand each other’s values, concerns and motivations rather than those that devolve into reinforcement of negative stereotypes or assumptions. The so-called Public Conversations Project relies on ...

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Research: Latino Healthcare Coverage Has Improved, But Gaps Remain


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This is part of the Salud America! Achieving a Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities: A Research Review» Impact of the Affordable Care Act The Patient Accountability and Affordable Care Act, generally referred to as the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, was signed into law in March 2010. The ACA was designed to expand insurance coverage, improving access to health care. Key provisions were included to benefit those of lower SES, including Medicaid expansion and federal health subsidies for those living at 138% of the federal poverty level, and large subsidies for those at 100% to 400% of the federal poverty level who purchased insurance plans through ACA exchanges. In January 2014, the most impactful ACA provisions took effect, including the expansion of ...

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Policy Implications: A Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities


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This is part of the Salud America! Achieving a Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities: A Research Review» Research Review: Conclusions Inequality, including but not limited to income and healthcare inequality, is perpetuated by implicit racial or ethnic bias. Implicit bias influences behavior regardless of intentions and can result in unintentional bolstering of inequity. System justification is a way in which advantaged individuals justify the status quo to help buffer stress from negative events and cope with guilt and distress associated with the existing socioeconomic order. The disadvantaged also engage in system justification, though this may be detrimental to their psychological well-being. People living in rural areas have less access to ...

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Research: Discrimination Impacts Life, Health Outcomes for Latinos


Latino man sad depressed discrimination cohesive culture research review

This is part of the Salud America! Achieving a Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities: A Research Review» The Impact of Discrimination is Far-Reaching for Latinos, Other People of Color The collective findings on the impacts of discrimination on education, opportunity, and health are critical for people of color. Overall, more Americans say that being Latino hurts people’s ability to get ahead in this country (51%) than say it helps (18%) or that it neither helps nor hurts (30%), according to 2019 and 2020 Pew Research Center surveys.39,40 Among Latinos themselves, about 23% say being Latino has hurt their ability to get ahead at least a little. More Latinos than Whites also say they have been treated unfairly in hiring, pay, or promotion (26% to 19%), ...

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Mechanism of Discrimination: The Problem of Implicit Bias


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This is part of the Salud America! Achieving a Cohesive Culture for Health Equity in Latino and All Communities: A Research Review» Implicit Bias Is a Key Mechanism People Use to Excuse Discrimination among People of Color, Those in Poverty Bias is the tendency to favor one group over another. Most people think they harbor no bias toward other people, or they believe they know their biases and don’t act on them. The first type of bias is explicit bias, or overt bias. Explicit bias is a consciously held set of beliefs about a social group. Acting on race or ethnicity-based bias would be conscious, or explicit, racism, which many Americans openly reject, although which still exists in American society. The second type of bias is implicit bias, or unconscious bias. Implicit ...

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