Latino seniors face many health disparities, including disproportionate rates of disability, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and more. Additionally, they may have trouble communicating with healthcare workers due to bias, discrimination, and lack of bilingual and culturally competent staff. A new resource wants to help elderly Latinos get quality healthcare by helping them navigate Medicare. Anhelo is an online and phone service that Spanish speakers can use to better understand their Medicare coverage options and ensure it meets their needs. Resources like Anhelo, along with other policies, can vastly improve the healthcare experience for Latino seniors.
What Problems do Latino Seniors Face in Accessing Healthcare?
Many barriers stand in the way of Latino seniors receiving proper ...
For Maria Hernandez, fighting for health equity hits close to home. When her dad was in the hospital fighting cancer, Hernandez had a realization. “He’s being wheeled into the surgical unit, and he's with me and my mom and my two brothers, and we're all speaking Spanish, wishing him well. And all of a sudden, he puts up his hand and says, ‘Stop, don't speak Spanish, they're going to think I'm stupid, and they're not going to help me.’ And that just took my breath away,” Hernandez said. It made her realize that healthcare organizations must do more to address implicit bias. “Here I was, working on diversity and inclusion issues in major corporations. And I thought, what is healthcare doing about this? And so I started looking into this,” Hernandez ...
Despite being severely impacted economically by the COVID-19 pandemic, low-income, immigrant families often avoided federal assistance programs, according to new data from the Urban Institute’s Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey. “Many immigrant families have suffered significant economic hardships and health impacts during the COVID-19 crisis and have faced barriers to participation in safety net programs or other supports,” according to researchers Hamutal Bernstein, Dulce Gonzalez, and Michael Karpman. Unfortunately, barriers like restrictive eligibility rules for immigrants as well as a fear of deportation or barring from legal residency discourage immigrants from seeking help through federal assistance programs, like food and housing aid. However, with President ...
The Latino community has disproportionately felt the burden of COVID-19. COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have been higher for Latinos than other groups. “The pandemic has disproportionately hit Latinos throughout the country, who are already at a disadvantage as they are likely to work in front-line jobs and have the highest uninsured rates,” writes Cynthia Silva, according to NBC News. As more Latinos have been hospitalized, healthcare providers have noticed the need for Latino nurses who can provide culturally competent, bilingual services. Unfortunately, less than 6% of nurses are Latino, mostly due to systemic barriers that prevent Latino students from pursuing a career in nursing. Let’s explore the importance of culturally competent healthcare and ...
Luz Garcini wants to help Latinos heal from the loss of a loved one. “One of the biggest needs that we see in the community right now is that there has been a lot of loss and grief, particularly associated to the loss of loved ones over the current [COVID-19] pandemic, that has not been addressed,” Garcini said. Garcini is a clinical psychologist and epidemiologist. She works as an assistant professor at the Center for Research to Advance Community Health (ReACH) at UT Health San Antonio. To further the study of loss and grief among Latino immigrants, Garcini and her team at ReACH created a monthly webinar series, “Paths: Building Strength in the Face of Loss,” to help Latinos understand grief and build coping skills and strength. She hopes the series will help Latinos ...
Police are more likely to stop and search Latinos than white people, even though white people are more likely to possess illegal material, according to data from Texas and California, two states with large Latino populations. “That discrepancy could mean that a lot more innocent Latino people are being subjected to searches than white people are, an invasive and often demeaning process, which can damage trust in police,” according to Houston Public Media. The data comes out a year after the police killing of George Floyd, which reinvigorated Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and a wave of police reform efforts, like implicit bias trainings. Now reform activists and city officials hope the data can spark more change. “I look forward to our Police ...
Everyone deserves access to a healthy, safe school environment with the opportunity to succeed. Unfortunately, many Latino and other children of color are disadvantaged through neighborhoods and schools that lack resources and funding. Latino kids are more likely to have unhealthy school food environments and are treated worse in schools. Children of color are often treated differently by school personnel; they are more likely to be harshly punished for minor infractions, and teachers may underestimate their abilities. Let’s use #SaludTues on Tuesday, July 6, 2021, to discuss inequities in school health and education that prevent Latino kids and other children of color from being healthy and successful in life. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: Inequities in School Health ...
U.S. Latinos are 1.5 times more likely than whites to develop Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, the number of Latinos with Alzheimer’s and dementia could increase six-fold, from 200,000 today to 1.3 million by 2050, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. We need to raise awareness. We also need advocacy for solutions. Fortunately, our Salud America! #SaludTues Tweetchats, a discussion series on Twitter about Latino health, helped raise awareness of and advocacy action around Alzheimer's and its rise among Latinos, according to our new study in the Journal of Health Communication. The study found that #SaludTues Tweetchats provided a unique forum for sharing facts, increasing exposure, and discussing solutions to Alzheimer's among Latinos. "The study proves that ...
A new interactive mapping tool from diversitydatakids.org allows you to see what opportunities are available to children based on different neighborhoods. “The Child Opportunity Index measures and maps the conditions children need: safe housing, good schools, access to healthy food, green spaces and clean air, among others,” according to diversitydatakids.org. The mapping tool highlights the social and health inequities for Latino children and other children of color. “These conditions are not equitably available to all children in the U.S. Black, Hispanic and Indigenous children disproportionately live in neighborhoods that do not provide all the conditions children need to be healthy and grow into their full potential,” according to diversitydatakids.org. By ...
