This is part of our Building Support for Latino Families: A Research Review »
The Growth of Head Start
Given the evidence to support the benefit of organized early childhood education, development of high-quality ECE centers that also promote engagement of Latino parents holds great promise for the future of Latino children. Many programs from the 1960s and on provide evidence for the effectiveness of incorporating parent-targeted elements within early childcare programs, and these family-based approaches form the basis for the two-generation model discussed later in this review. The first explicit family-based program was Head Start, which in 1965 declared the goal of providing low-income preschool children a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, ...
Nutrition education—when it's accessible—can help low-income Latino and all families eat healthier. Four innovative projects used text messages, online programs, and other technologies to boost the reach and impact of nutrition education among participants in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) federal food assistance program. In each project, technology made nutrition education more accessible and useful. "Technology appears to have an impact on keeping our families in the program," said Dr. Shannon Whaley of UCLA, which led one of the studies. "This use of technology matters, and it is where WIC probably needs to go."
Why Is Nutrition Education a Big Deal?
Latinos tend to lack access to healthy food, according to a Salud America! Research Review. One big way ...
About 15% of U.S. Latinos had a diagnosable mental illness in the past year—that's enough people to fill New York City. How can this population achieve healthier minds? A healthy diet is, not surprisingly, a great first step. In fact, good nutrition protects against depression and anxiety; poor nutrition is a risk factor for those conditions, according to an emerging field of research. "By helping people shape their diets, we can improve their mental health and decrease their risk of psychiatric disorders," Dr. Drew Ramsey of Columbia University told WebMD.
The State of Mental Health
Only about 1 in 5 Americans consider themselves in optimal mental health. Depression afflicts more than a quarter adults. By 2020, depression will rank as the second-leading cause of ...
Latinos face many barriers to health care, including language differences; complex and confusing documents and processes; lack of knowledge of available services; unreliable transportation; and fear of using government services. One way to increase health equity among Latinos is to remove these barriers. Rocio Muñoz, community health navigator at Benton County Health Department (BCHD), in partnership with the school district, worked to embed bilingual, bicultural health navigators into elementary schools in Corvallis, Ore. (7.4% Latino), to address these identified barriers. The partnership resulted in a model where health navigators are placed in schools to coordinate with students, parents and teachers regarding students’ health records in order to boost access to health ...
Alma Galvez was sick of seeing a growing number of overweight Latino child patients at her clinic in Minneapolis, Minn. (10.5% Latino population). In her job as a community health worker for St. Mary’s Health Clinics in Minnesota, Galvez was able to pinpoint a big culprit—sugary drinks. Galvez and Shannon Gavin, the organization’s coordinator of family health programs, wanted to reduce sugary drink consumption among Latino child patient and families. So they jumped head-first at the chance to work with state health officials to create a bilingual, culturally relevant campaign to urge Latino families to rethink their drink.
Sugar’s Stranglehold on Latino Health Galvez and Gavin are big players in how St Mary’s Health Clinics serves its large minority and ...
School is the primary food source for many Latino students living in poverty. So why do some students go hungry, while some schools have extra food that goes to waste? To find an answer, Texas State Rep. Diego Bernal visited schools in San Antonio (63.2% Latino). Bernal found that many kids, even in more affluent school districts, were going hungry while schools threw away, "untouched, unopened, ripe, perfectily edible food," according to the San Antonio Express-News. The reason: “Complexities of overlapping district, state, and federal policies, along with a collection of myths and cautionary tales.” Bernal wanted to help.
Helping Schools Store, Share Unused Food
He championed legislation (HB 367), with the help of State Sen. José Menénedez, to allow schools to set ...
Happy #HispanicHeritageMonth! We're excited to celebrate Latinos, the largest racial/ethnic minority in the country, and highlight causes for health concerns and how to overcome them. For example nearly 40% of U.S. Latino kids are overweight or obese. These are higher rates than both white and black children, and places a big burden on the current and future state of Latino health. The good news is that healthy weight for healthy kids is an achievable goal. Use #SaludTues on Sept. 19, 2017, to tweet with us as we explore how to improve the health of Latino kids in schools and communities! WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: Healthy Weight & Healthy Kids
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. EST Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludAmerica
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Latino kids tend to live in neighborhoods with more access to fast food restaurants and less access to healthier food options, according to Salud America! research. Regularly eating high-calorie, high-sugar, and high-sodium meals at these restaurants can have devastating long-term health impacts, such as obesity, heart disease, and more. In an effort to combat these worsening trends, some of the largest fast-food restaurant chains pledged to offer healthier meal options on their kids’ menus. Some pledged to remove sugary drinks, and other pledged to add healthier options. Were they able to keep their promises?
Fast food study The Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, a nonprofit research and public policy organization based out of the University of Connecticut, ...
It cannot be emphasized enough: kids need to eat healthy, nutritious meals in order for them to succeed academically. There is an indisputable link between nutrition and the development of children’s brains. Despite this importance, many kids go hungry. Kids from low-income families, including a disproportionate number of Latinos, often go without meals at school because the owe money. School lunch debt is a huge issue in cities across the country. A 2016 survey by the School Nutrition Association of 1,000 school meal program operators, about 75% of districts had unpaid student meal debt at the end of the school year. The median amount of debt per district was $2,000, but it can run much higher in large districts. For example, the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, ...
