Step 1: Innovative cancer education. Step 2: Cancer screening. Step 3: Catching cancer at early, treatable stages. That’s the life-saving idea behind Salud San Antonio!, a new $2 million research project led by Dr. Cynthia Mojica, assistant professor at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. Salud San Antonio! will partner with several community groups and employ community health workers—also known as promotoras—to teach Latinos in low-income, health-problematic areas on the city’s West and South sides about breast, cervical and colorectal cancer and the benefits of cancer screening. After promotoras teach, they’ll refer Latinos for cancer screening and even help with travel to appointments, interpreting medical forms and ...
¡Por Vida!, launched in October 2010, is a San Antonio restaurant recognition program that aims to help adults and children make healthier food choices by identifying menu items that meet certain nutritional guidelines. The obesity prevention program is one arm of a larger city effort that implores residents to "Find Your Balance" and get healthy. Since it started, a dozen restaurants have joined the program. Watch these videos to see how San Antonio residents Pedro Garcia and Sylvia Niño are dropping pounds thanks to the ...
Editor’s Note: This is a 20-part series featuring new research briefs on Latino childhood obesity, nutrition, physical activity and more by the 20 grantees of Salud America! Part 20 is Dr. Miriam Vega. Find all briefs here. Dr. Miriam Vega
“La Familia en la Cocina is Speaking Two Languages” In her Salud America! pilot research project, Dr. Miriam Vega of the Latino Commission on AIDS in New York south interviewed Latina mothers and children to better understand their knowledge, attitudes and communication behaviors related to food consumption and preferences, as well as the built and cultural environments in which they make decisions. Key preliminary findings include: a large gap exists in the manner in which a mother and child communicate; and
many immigrant ...
The 2012 International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Annual Meeting, set for May 23-26, 2012, in Austin, Texas, is a unique opportunity to learn about behavioral nutrition and physical activity, interact with a broad constituency of leaders, and gain new insight into innovations in research, policy and practice. Register here. See a list of key speakers and special features here. Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children, is an event sponsor. Salud America! is led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind ...
In the past, food insecurity and obesity were viewed as separate public health problems, yet research now shows that people with unreliable access to food are also more likely to be obese. A new brief, Making the Connection: Linking Policies that Prevent Hunger and Childhood Obesity, released by Leadership for Healthy Communities, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provides policymakers seeking to address hunger in their communities with policy options that can also contribute significantly to reversing the childhood obesity epidemic. Some of the policy strategies outlined in the brief include: Establishing healthy food financing initiatives to increase access to nutritious foods;
Supporting farm-to-institution, farm-to-school and school garden ...
Editor’s Note: This is a 20-part series featuring new research briefs on Latino childhood obesity, nutrition, physical activity and more by the 20 grantees of Salud America! Part 19 is Dr. Nelda Mier. Dr. Nelda Mier
“Built Environment Policy for Physical Activity in Mexican-American Children” In her Salud America! pilot research project, Dr. Nelda Mier of the Texas A&M Health Science Center investigated Latino children’s perceptions of environmental factors that influence their physical activity, and documented environmental characteristics in colonias in South Texas. Colonias are unincorporated settlements along the U.S.-Mexico border where many people live in impoverished conditions and lack basic services such as running water. Key preliminary findings ...
Latinos, you may not know how important it is for cancer researchers to have racial/ethnic biospecimens. Increasing the number of Latino biospecimens—or samples of biological material, such as blood, urine, saliva, tissue, tumors, etc.—will be critical to accelerating our understanding of the molecular basis of cancer and creating a more accurate genome in many types of cancers that disproportionately affect Latinos. This, in turn, will lead to the development of better diagnostic tools; and ultimately, to improve our ability to diagnose, treat and prevent cancer among all people. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) is a joint effort between the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). TCGA uses an integrated approach of connecting ...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has launched a new mobile website, m.cancer.gov. Designed specifically for mobile phone users on any mobile platform, the site in English and Spanish offers much of the same high-quality information found on cancer.gov's desktop site. Available in English and Spanish, m.cancer.gov provides cancer patients, their loved ones, and their caregivers with credible, current information about: A wide range of cancer types
Cancer diagnosis and treatment
Dealing with treatment side effects
Questions to ask your doctor
Breaking and current cancer news
A dictionary of cancer terms that includes audio pronunciations
One-touch connection to NCI's 1-800-4-CANCER information specialist line In the future, additional content, including information about ...
// Check out Text4baby, a free bilingual mobile information service that provides pregnant women and new moms with information to help them care for their health and give their babies the best possible start in life. Sign up for the service by texting BABY (or BEBE for Spanish) to 511411. Once enrolled, three free SMS messages are sent each week, timed to either a woman’s due date or baby’s date of birth. Text4baby has proven beneficial effects, according to a recent study of 122 women by the National Latino Research Center at California State University, San Marcos, and the University of California, San Diego: 64% reported text4baby helped them remember an appointment or immunization they or their child needed.
75.4% reported that a text4baby message informed them of ...
