Is your town quickly becoming unlivable? That's the case for Jose Luis Ortiz, a farmer and an environmental activist with the Los Jardines Institute. He describes how, despite what some might think, climate change is already destroying his home. Check out this discussion on the #SaludTalks Podcast, Episode Nine, "An Endangered Community"! WHAT: A #SaludTalks discussion on the current, real-time impacts of climate change
GUESTS: Jose Luis Ortiz, an environmental activist with the Los Jardines Institute
WHERE: Available wherever fine podcasts are downloaded, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, Tune In, and others
WHEN: The episode went live at 11 a.m., Nov. 6, 2019 In this episode, we explored questions such as: How is the climate crisis impacting ...
Youth sports are a great way to help kids get the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity a day. But only about half of U.S. kids participate on a youth sports team. Latinos or other racial/ethnic minorities, girls, rural, low-income, and/or youth with disabilities all have lower rates of both physical activity and youth sports participation, data show. For Latinos, cost and local access to places to play are big barriers to youth sports equity. Fortunately, the new federal National Youth Sports Strategy outlines opportunities for youth, adults, organizations, communities, and policymakers to improve youth sports equity. "[The strategy] aims to unify U.S. youth sports culture around a shared vision: that one day all youth will have the opportunity, motivation, and access ...
Every kid needs physical activity and active spaces for healthy growth. But physical inactivity has increased 10% in rural and low-income communities, according to a new study. Rural children have higher risks for obesity than kids living in cities—and rural children of color are at the most risk. This is where Play Streets comes in. Play Streets are place-based interventions that temporarily close a public area to create safe places for physical activity. This engages kids and families, gets people active, and promotes community connections. Now researchers from Baylor University and Johns Hopkins University has released their Guide to Implementing Play Streets in Rural Communities. Using first-hand experience, the guide teaches local groups, ...
Feeling the sun’s rays, breathing in cool air, lying amongst the trees, standing in the rain — all ways of how nature can ground people and bring about feelings of joy. While it’s true that most Latinos and Americans might spend up to 90% of their time indoors, building design can give inhabitants a sense of connectivity to our environment, or biophilia. Construction workers and architects should make the most of nature to create health-centric structures, according to the American Institute of Architects (AIA). “Simply put, nature is good for us because we are part of nature,” writes Dr. Miles Richardson, director of core psychology programs at the University of Derby. “We are human animals evolved to make sense of the natural world, and this embeddedness in the ...
Improving safe routes for people to bike can help cities reach their health, equity, economic, and climate change goals. Kansas City, Missouri (10.2% Latino), for example, can save 36 lives every year and increase local spending by $500 million if the city fully implements its bike plan over the next two decades, according to a new study from the University of Missouri Kansas City’s Department of Architecture, Urban Planning, and Design. Commissioned by Bike Walk Kansas City, researchers analyzed various social and economic benefits of the Kansas City Bicycle Master Plan. “This research confirms how essential a quality bike network is to so many city goals: safety, health, economic opportunity, and fiscal sustainability,” Bike Walk KC’s Director of Community Planning, ...
Inequities in health arise from social and structural inequities and the policies, laws, and culture that keep them in place. To address inequities that affect health, it is important to make the distinction between individual-level (midstream) interventions to address “social needs,” and community-level (upstream) interventions to address “social determinants.” Individual-level efforts to address social needs are necessary, but not enough. Characterizing these interventions as efforts to address social determinants of health conveys a false sense of progress. "If we, even inadvertently, imply that the social determinants of health can be solved by offering Uber rides to individual patients or by deploying community health navigators, it will be challenging, if not ...
Where you live is significantly linked to how healthy you are. Sadly, U.S. Latino communities face unaffordable housing, unreliable public transportation, and a lack of green space and parks. This limits Latinos’ access to health-promoting assets─medical care, good schools, healthy food, and physical activity. This contributes to health inequities affecting this population. Fortunately, community leaders can adopt dynamic land-use methods, public-private partnerships, and community involvement to build and revitalize Latino neighborhoods. This can create affordable housing, connection to public transportation, and more green spaces. The result is health equity─a fair, just opportunity to achieve the best health possible.
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This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latinos and Housing, Transportation, and Green Space: A Research Review » Future Research
Many of the policy suggestions and strategies highlighted in this review are based upon research performed within urban Latino communities. While many of the suggestions may be applicable to smaller Latino communities, it will be essential to determine if they will be successful when applied to the semi-isolated Latino communities of the “new Latino destinations.” In one sense, because the majority of these policy recommendations hinge upon community activism and solidarity, it may be possible to translate them into the heavily Latino-majority communities found in these small-town and rural areas. However, activism builds upon political ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latinos and Housing, Transportation, and Green Space: A Research Review » Conclusions
Latinos need affordable housing options, access to reliable, relevantly routed public transportation, and connected, safe, and maintained green spaces for transportation and recreational use. Many societal and economic factors are responsible for the inequitable distribution of funds to support these projects. For instance, it was beyond the scope of this review to fully discuss the historical legacy of disparities. However, with proper political will and community activism, change can be made to improve access to affordable housing, public transportation, and green spaces in all types of Latino communities. A common theme across the research has ...
