For 30 years, a group of small community health centers have provided primary healthcare to residents in Maricopa County, Ariz. (30% Latino population). A few years ago, center leaders Dr. Avein Saaty Tafoya and Lisa Blue recognized that local residents continued to face cultural, language, financial, and other barriers to proper comprehensive healthcare. They felt compelled to change the entire approach of their centers. Adelante Healthcare began to seek grants and partnerships to add personnel to expand beyond their historical focus on primary care. Today their new team—primary care physicians, specialists, bilingual health coaches, mental and behavioral health social workers, and others who connect families to insurance, health education, and more—provides more ...
A quality education is key to health, science shows. Latinos are making progress in educational achievement. The Latino high-school dropout rate is at an all-time low. Graduation rates are at an all-time high. More Latinos are enrolling in two- and four-year universities than ever before. But there remains a large educational gap between Latinos and their peers. A new initiative by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, and The College Board is trying to significantly close this gap. The two-year effort aims to expand access to “unique personalized learning pathways” to help lower-income and rural area students prepare for key “college gateway tasks,” such as the PSAT, SAT and Advanced Placement courses.
What's ...
Hannah Lieder, foster mother and founder of Minneapolis Swims, has been working since 2010 to keep open the local Phillips Pool in a disadvantaged neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minn. Why? Lieder knows that children living in low-income, Latino, or minority neighborhoods have historically lacked convenient access to physical activity spaces, particularly swimming pools, compared to white or high-income neighborhoods. These social and environmental inequalities contribute to disparities in drowning rates, physical activity levels, health outcomes and academic achievement. Phillips Pool was in disrepair and under constant threat to be concreted over. Now, six years later, Lieder’s legacy lives on, through Denny Bennett, as crews will break ground on the Phillips Aquatics ...
A few years ago, only 1 in 10 Latino children were screened for autism when they came in for well-child visits at Unity Health Care's Upper Cardozo Health Center in Washington, D.C. None were flagged for autism. The problem? Latino parents often misunderstood the center's written autism screening questions. Questions were designed for English speakers and, even when translated into Spanish, tended to mystify or confuse Spanish speakers, Spectrum News reports. The answer? A Georgetown University researcher created a culturally and linguistically tailored oral screening test where clinicians asked Latino parents the autism questions. Trained multilingual interviewers, and later center clinicians, gave the oral screening to parents. Of 1,400 children screened, 4% were ...
We shouldn’t have to shake up our daily routines to get the mental and physical benefits of physical activity. But for Latino families, physical activity often isn't a daily norm. In fact, Latino-majority schools provide less time for recess and P.E., and Latino neighborhoods have fewer places to walk and play, Salud America! research shows. Let's use #SaludTues on May 23, 2017, to tweet about partnerships, programs, policy changes, and infrastructure that can help Latinos and everyone move more and sit less in the places where we live, learn, work, play, pray, and retire. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “Active Living Programs, Policy Changes, and Infrastructure Improvements”
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET (Noon-1 p.m. CT), Tuesday, May 23, 2017
WHERE: On Twitter with ...
A lack of access to quality healthcare coverage has been one of the most persistent causes of health inequity for many Latino families. Despite significant gains made under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Latinos still remain the largest uninsured population in the country. In May 2016, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) of California (38.39% Latino population) implemented new legislation that allows for all children in the state under the age of 19 to be eligible for full Medi-Cal benefits. Previously, undocumented children would have only received emergency care benefits through Medi-Cal and would not have had access to dental or mental health care. From May through April of 2017, 189,434 undocumented children had been signed up for the “Medi-Cal for All Children” ...
Despite being the country’s largest racial and ethnic minority group and despite the fact that the Latino population in the United States is growing at exponential rates, they suffer from vast differences in health conditions compared to whites. These health disparities are rooted in “social disadvantage” and affect Latinos in their abilities to access quality healthcare, attain better paying jobs and quality education. With serious issues plaguing them, what can be done? The National League of Cities recently collaborated with the George Washington University Milken School of Public Health to analyze the options that cities have in addressing the educational and healthcare needs of residents. In order to reduce health disparities, it is critical to address ...
Eggs are sometimes called “nature’s miracle food.” The are found in nearly every culture’s diet around the world, and for good reason. Eggs are versatile to cook with. They are high in protein and nutrients, one of the few food sources of Vitamin D, and pretty tasty! Are Eggs Good for You? Over the years, debate has raged about the true health value of eggs, mainly due to being high in dietary cholesterol (which is found in the yolks). However, eggs are low in saturated fat, which is the bigger culprit when it comes to raising blood cholesterol levels. Because of these facts, eggs have been given the proverbial “thumbs up” from the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans by Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. WebMd's Dr. Kathleen M. Zelman says ...
Mental Health is a growing public health concern in the United States. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, during any given year, nearly 25% of the population has a diagnosable disorder, two-thirds of which goes untreated. According to a new study, an estimated 8.3 million adults in the U.S. (close to 3.5%) suffer from serious psychological distress. What’s worse, many are unable to get the help they need to either treat there conditions or even get a diagnosis. Latinos reported the highest stress across four major sources of stress including money, employment, family responsibilities and health concerns, a recent survey reported. In order to reduce health disparities, it is critical to address inequities in programs, practices, and ...
