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Catherine Stewart

Catherine Stewart is a digital content curator for Salud America! and its home base, the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio. She is a graduate of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland College Park, and hopes to utilize her skills to help people find their voices and inspire change in their communities.

Articles by Catherine Stewart

Survey: Latinos Among Students Most Likely to Withdraw from College



Latino and Black students have the greatest risk of withdrawing from post-secondary education programs, according to a recent survey by the Lumina-Gallup State of Higher Education. This finding comes at a time when institutions offering bachelor’s degrees are seeing a significant drop in enrollment — a situation exacerbated by COVID-19. Over the last decade, college enrollment has declined by 7.4%, which is the equivalent of 1.5 million students, according to Best Colleges. The biggest decline – 900,000 students – came during the pandemic years of fall 2019 and fall 2023. While the enrollment of students such as Latinos and Blacks has somewhat improved, they are also considered to be more likely to leave. Survey Results on College Withdrawal In fall 2023, Gallup surveyed ...

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All of Us Research Data Unlocks 275 Million New Genetic Variants



For the last few years, the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program has mounted an unprecedented effort to collect health data from 1 million people of all ages and ethnicities across the country for use in impactful scientific research. In fact, the data has led researchers to a shocking discovery — 275 million previously unknown genetic variants, according to a recent news release. Nearly 4 million of the variants are in areas that may be connected to risk for disease. The variants, uncovered using data shared by nearly 250,000 All of Us participants, put researchers in a position to better understand genetic influences on health and disease, especially in communities often left out of research. NIH reported that half the genomic data came from Latino, ...

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Watch: Researchers, Find Data for Your Study in Free Virtual All of Us Convention



The All of Us Research Program is peeling back the curtain on its ground-breaking health data collection by hosting its annual All of Us Research Convention. On Wednesday, April 3, 2024, and Thursday, April 4, 2024, the free virtual conference will give attendees insight into how All of Us data is being used to fuel integral research that reflects the diverse country we live in. All of Us, created by the National Institutes of Health, is a historic effort to collect and study data from at least one million people living in the United States. “The goal of All of Us is to speed up health research discoveries, enabling new kinds of individualized health care, with a strong emphasis on diversity,” said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of Salud America! at UT Health San Antonio, an All ...

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Apply Now: Research Chronic Disease in the Latino Community!



The Healthy Americas Foundation (HAF) is giving a few scholars funding to research chronic diseases in Latino communities with help from the All of Us Research Program. The new funding builds on HAF’s effort to improve Latino health by supporting researchers. In 2022-2023, Healthy Americas Research Consortium awarded $10,000 each to 10 scholars to help understand cervical cancer screening issues, experiences with accessing screening, and ways to increase Pap and HPV screening in Latino and other underserved communities. Projects utilized data from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) All of Us Research Hub. NIH’s All of Us Research Program is a national campaign to collect and study data from 1 million or more Americans to help inform studies and accelerate research that ...

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Study: Calculating the Steps to Lower Diabetes Risk



You’ve probably heard the expression, “Get your steps in,” but just how many steps are needed to make a difference in your health? The average American takes anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 steps a day, which equates to 1.5 to 2 miles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, the CDC suggests that most adults should aim for at least 10,000 steps, which is equivalent of walking 5 miles, a day to maintain a healthier existence. If walking 5 miles a day puts a spring in your step toward a healthy lifestyle, just how many steps would it take to lower your risk for type 2 diabetes? A recent study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism looked at Fitbit data collected from 5,600 participants in the All of Us research ...

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The Devastating Cost of Cancer in Latinos



This year, over 2 million American will get a cancer diagnosis, including many Latinos. As one of the leading causes of death in Latinos in the U.S., one in five men and one in seven women who are Latino will die from the disease. Cancer also takes a heavy financial toll on patients, whose survival is dependent upon a variety of factors, including access to quality, often costly, healthcare treatments. Let’s explore the cost burden of cancer, and what to do about it. The Cost Burden of Cancer In 2018, patients and their families paid $5.6 billion out of pocket for cancer treatments, such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy drugs, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Americans spent a total of $183 billion on cancer-related healthcare in 2015 - an amount ...

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Study: Severe Obesity Rates in Low-Income Latino Children Are Rising



Latino children accounted for the highest increase in severe obesity among preschool-aged children from low-income households, a new CDC study found. The study examined children aged 2 to 4 under the enrollment of the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, which is a federal nutrition assistance program aimed at providing healthy foods for low-income women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or postpartum, and children up to 5 years old, from 2010 to 2020. When the study began in 2010, 2.1% of children aged 2 to 4 in WIC were severely obese. A downward trend in severe obesity occurred for the next several years, when rates in that age group went from 2.1% in 2010 to 1.8% in 2016, the CDC study found. However, by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, that number spiked back up to 2% in ...

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Free Program Seeks to Ease Stress, Promote Heart Health in San Antonio



The way into a person’s heart is through their mind — at least that’s the case in the “A Mindful Heart: Stress Management for Individuals with Hypertension” program. Program leader Dr. Stacy Ogbeide of the Department of Family & Community Medicine at UT Health San Antonio is taking a psychological approach to address hypertension, which is a key risk factor for many heart diseases, including cardiovascular diseases. Dr. Ogbeide is looking for adults with high blood pressure living in San Antonio to participate in a free program that focuses on stress management intervention in a group setting, which can include education, arousal reduction, such as relaxation training, and behavioral skills training, like coping strategies. “The group format has been recommended when ...

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New Cancer Cases Projected to Surpass 2M Historical High


breast cancer screening

New cancer cases are projected to surpass 2 million in 2024 - a first in for the U.S., according to American Cancer Society’s Cancer Facts & Figures 2024 report.  The landmark projection amounts to 5,500 diagnoses a day.  The American Cancer Society attributes the rise in cases to a growing and aging population along with an increase in diagnoses of six common cancers – breast, prostate, endometrial, pancreatic, kidney, and melanoma.  In addition, the organization is projecting over 611,000 deaths from cancer in 2024, a .19% increase from 2023. That is more than 1,600 deaths each day!  While cancer is prevalent across all people, it disproportionately continues to affect some groups, such as Latinos.  Cancer in Latinos  Cancer is a top cause of death for ...

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