Study: Rural Immigrant Communities on the Border Suffer Poor Health


Stawberry Harvest in Central California

Foreign-born immigrants in U.S. rural borderlands are plagued by poverty, stress, discrimination and lack of access to adequate healthcare, according to a new study by the University of California Riverside. These inequities jeopardize their mental and physical health. “While the research focused on Latino immigrants in Southern California, our findings tell us a lot about structural level factors and daily life events and chronic strain that create stress for minorities and immigrants in rural communities,” Ann Cheney, lead researcher and an assistant professor in the Center for Healthy Communities at UC Riverside, said in a press release. Rural Health as a Health Disparity The South Eastern Coachella Valley is home to predominantly low-income Mexican farmworking ...

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Hospital Treats Neighborhood as Patient, Tries to Cure Unstable Housing


Houses renovated by the redevelopment project lead by Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

In Columbus, Ohio (5.8% Latino), the diverse Southern Orchards neighborhood suffers racism, a lack of affordable housing, economic segregation, violent crime, poverty, and expensive medical use. That’s why the whole neighborhood has become a hospital’s “patient.” Nationwide Children’s Hospital saw “unsafe conditions” as their patient’s top symptom. They diagnosed their patient with “unstable housing,” which is known to cause many economic, social, and health hardships, especially for Latinos and other people of color. The hospital prescribed a “housing intervention” and spent the past 10 years revitalizing Columbus’ South Side and Southern Orchards neighborhood through its Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families (HNHF) partnership with faith, community, ...

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New Playbook: Creating Community Partnerships for Health Equity



A new action-oriented guide is available to foster collaboration between the health sector and the organizations working to improve the conditions of poverty, known as the community development sector. Collaboration among these sectors is critical because more than 80% of the nearly $3.5 trillion spent on medical care each year in the U.S. is spent on treating chronic diseases, most of which are preventable and related to the conditions of poverty. Latinos and low-income populations are disproportionately burdened by the conditions of poverty, thus face higher rates of chronic disease. Conditions of Poverty Health is not created in a doctor’s office, it is created in healthy, equitable, and prosperous communities. However, not all communities were created equal. Some have ...

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Report: Latino Kids Suffer More Poverty and Gaps in Education, Health Opportunity


Latino farm boy in poverty and food insecurity

Latino and other minority youth have higher rates of poverty and greater gaps in education and health opportunity than their white peers, according to a new report. The 2018 County Health Rankings found that: Poverty rates among children and youth are at least 1.5 times higher than rates among adults aged 18 and older, and the rates are even higher for Latino, Black, and American Indian/Alaskan Native children and youth. Child poverty rates for Latino and Black children are worse across all types of counties, and are even higher in suburban counties than for White children in rural counties. More than 1 out of every 5 youth in the bottom performing counties do not graduate from high school in four years. It's worse among racial/ethnic groups. 1 out of 4 Latino youth do not ...

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Could You Cover a $1,000 Emergency?


latino man contruction worker falling off ladder

Life happens. Would you be able to come up with $1,000 for an emergency like a car wreck, a broken arm, or a busted air conditioner? Sadly, 61% of Latino and all Americans say they could not pay for an unplanned emergency expense, according to a report by financial site Bankrate. “Even though unemployment is down and there's been a recent uptick in wages, we aren't seeing the needle move savings,” said Greg McBride of Bankrate told CNN Money. Unexpected bills and expenses aren’t uncommon. More than 30% of all U.S. households had at least one unplanned expense in 2017. But most Americans don’t have an ability to cover it. Almost one in five Americans said they would put the expense on a credit card, Bankrate reports. This usually makes the expense even higher in ...

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Grad Student Gifts San Antonio with “Geography of Poverty” Map



Some areas of San Antonio (68% Latino) are much harder to live in than others. Latinos in these areas face more hardship, health problems, and die sooner. In fact, everyone living in these areas faces more hardship, health problems, and dies sooner. Lily Casura and other grad students in Social Work at the College of Public Policy at UT San Antonio (UTSA) mapped ZIP-code level data and launched a project to explore life lived in four difficult-to-live ZIP Codes in San Antonio. Their goal is to deepen conversations about equity and investment to improve quality of life. January 2019 UPDATE: Casura continues to gift San Antonio with interactive maps, to include results of the 2018 Community Needs Assessment.  Why ZIP Codes? Everyone can visualize the physical environment of ...

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Community Connectors Break Down Barriers to Healthy Homes



San Antonio’s Eastside Promise Neighborhood (EPN) is a community of about 18,000 residents (67.5% Latino) who face many health disparities driven by socioeconomic inequities in income, education and access to health care. Noemi Villarreal and others at EPN sought ways to improve health care and health equity in the area. To do that, they looked for ways to promote the idea of the “medical home,” in which the patient/family is the center of partnerships with primary care providers, specialists, educational resources, and the entire community. They formed a group of dedicated "Community Connectors" to travel the neighborhood and do whatever was necessary to promote development of a medical home for every home. Addressing issues in San Antonio Noemi Villarreal, health ...

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Tobacco & Fast Food Easier to Get for Latino Students



Schools with more Latino students are more likely to have fast-food restaurants and tobacco retailers within “easy reach” of them, according to a new study. The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, analyzed more than 18,000 public schools and found that more than 50% of Latino-majority schools were within 800 meters of both tobacco and fast food outlets Only 21% of white-majority schools were. "Schools are places where we expect to be healthy, supportive environments for kids, but right outside the door (students) could be exposed to unhealthy influences," author Heather D’Angelo of Westat in Rockville, MD, said in a recent Reuters interview. "I was surprised that there were so many tobacco outlets near schools." In Latino neighborhoods in general, ...

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