"When it comes to predicting how long you will live, your ZIP Code is more important than your genetic code," George Takei narrates in A Tale of Two Zip Codes, an animated short film by the California Endowment's 10-year Building Healthy Communities initiative. Where you live determines your opportunities, thus your health and life expectancy. Consider not having healthy food options, clean air, safe sidewalks, nearby parks, quality schools, public transportation and preventive health care. The root causes of inequity in access to opportunities are due to racial and economic discrimination. Struggling so much to find healthy options can be an overwhelming source of chronic stress, which is a serious health risk in itself. If we are all going to be healthier, we need to look at ...
How can you use data to improve health in your area? The 500 Cities dataset tries to provide an answer. The data set, which contains estimates of adult chronic disease, unhealthy behaviors, and preventive care for census tracts in 500 of the largest American cities, launched in 2016 thanks to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the CDC Foundation. The Urban Institute released a research report in May 2017 on how to use the data to reach change-making partners. Access the data set here and register for a webinar on Tuesday, June 13, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. (EST) with Urban Institute to learn how to host a local event centered on the new 500 Cities neighborhood-level health data. Census tract-level data allows cities ...
Lack of access to quality healthcare is one of the main inequities that keep many Latinos from obtaining the best quality healthcare possible. However, the advent and proliferation of telehealth or telemedicine looks to be a way to bridge the gap between Latinos and their healthcare providers. Developed as a remote way to monitor patients, treat chronic illnesses and/or conditions, and eliminate barriers (such as a lack of transportation), technology – in the form of telemedicine – looks to be the way of the future as far as healthcare goes, especially for Latinos. Studies have shown that more and more Latinos are accessing the Internet, especially through smart phones and other hand-held devices. This is the essence of telemedicine. Now, in Texas (38.42% Latino population), a ...
More Latino and Black youth are “disconnected”—not in school and not working—than their White peers, according to recent County Health Rankings data. How can we connect more minority youth to healthy, successful futures? Let’s use #SaludTues on Tuesday, May 30, 2017, to tweet about the latest strategies and resources to connect Latino and other minority youth to opportunities in education, jobs, and civic engagement from the earliest ages into adulthood: WHAT: #SaludTues Bilingual Tweetchat: “Connecting Minority Youth to Opportunity”
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET (Noon-1 p.m. CT), Tuesday, May 30, 2017
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludAmerica
CO-HOSTS: County Health Rankings (@CHRankings), The United Way (@UnitedWay)
Optional hashtags: ...
About 20% of cancer diagnoses in the United States are for rare cancers, according to a new American Cancer Society report, MedicalXpress reports. The number is worse for racial/ethnic groups. Latinos face higher rates of rare cancers (24%), as do Asian/Pacific Islanders (22%), than blacks (20%) and whites (19%). Rare cancers challenge both patients and doctors. For most rare cancers, research to identify causes or ways for prevention or early detection is limited or nonexistent, according to MedicalXpress. Rare cancers also can be tough to diagnose and treat, leading to delays in diagnosis and less effective means of treatment than for more common cancers. "Efforts are needed to develop interventions for prevention, early detection, and treatment to reduce the burden of ...
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 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 ...
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 ...
