Latino Health Disparities: Improving, But More Needs to be Done



The latest annual report on the nation’s health by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows Latinos are living longer than whites and blacks and health disparities are narrowing. Despite the latest improvements in health disparities, Latinos still have the highest incidence of high blood pressure and childhood obesity, The American Heart Association News (AHA) reports. “High blood pressure remains much more common among black Americans, and Hispanic children and teens are still more likely to be obese than their black, white and Asian counterparts.,” AHA said in a written statement. The CDC’s annual health report is a “snapshot” of the nation’s health “highlighting recent successes and challenges in fighting critical health problems in the United ...

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Study: Ads May Be Tempting Teens to Vape



Teens who have been exposed to electronic cigarette ads in the last 30 days are more likely to start vaping, according to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Engadget reports. "The unrestricted marketing of e-cigarettes and dramatic increases in their use by youth could reverse decades of progress in preventing tobacco use among youth," Brian King, deputy director at the CDC's smoking division, said in a statement. The data comes from the CDC's 2014 National Tobacco Survey that looked into the habits of more than 20,000 middle and high school students from across the country and found that the number of E-cigs users is increasing among teenagers. Along with their findings the CDC recommends “limiting e-cig sales to stores that only admit adults, ...

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CDC: 1 in 4 High School Students Use E-Cigarettes



A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds that, while the rate of cigarette smoking among U.S. teens did not increase, the use of e-cigarettes and other tobacco vaping products has been on the rise over the last four years, according to Mashable. "E-cigarettes are now the most commonly used tobacco product among youth, and use continues to climb," CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a release. "No form of youth tobacco use is safe. Nicotine is an addictive drug and use during adolescence may cause lasting harm to brain development." The CDC collected data from 20,000 middle and high school students between 2011-2015. The rate of high school students who reported using an e-cigarette at least once in the last month increased from 1.5% in 2011 to 16% in ...

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Los fumadores ganan menos y les cuesta mayor esfuerzo encontrar nuevo empleo



El tabaquismo usualmente es  asociado con el cáncer y otras enfermedades crónicas, pero un nuevo estudio de la Escuela de Medicina de Stanford asocia el tabaquismo con ganar menos dinero y más dificultades para encontrar un trabajo, informa Science Daily. Para el estudio, investigadores estudiaron a personas en busca de un nuevo empleo en el área de San Francisco entre 2013 y 2015. Cerca de la mitad eran fumadores y la otra mitad no lo eran. Según el estudio, después de un año, el doble de los no fumadores tenían un empleo. "Entre los fumadores que encontraron trabajo, en promedio, sus ingresos por hora era de $5 menos con respecto a los no fumadores que encontraron trabajo, una diferencia del 25,5 por ciento", dijo Judith Prochaska, de la Universidad de Stanford en su ...

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#SaludTues Tweetchat 1p ET 4/12/16: “How to Alter Health Messaging to Promote Prevention for Latinos”



Health messaging is a critical way to empower health equity. But without relevant, culturally competent health messages, Latinos will continue to face vast health disparities in diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers, especially in the face of conflicting unhealthy marketing by the food and beverage industry. Let’s use #SaludTues on April 12, 2016, during National Minority Health Month, to tweet about how healthcare professionals, public health professionals, city leaders, businesses, schools, and you can alter language and images in their health messaging to promote health for Latinos. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “How to Alter Health Messaging to Promote Prevention for Latinos” TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. EST Tuesday, April 12, 2016 WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag ...

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Southern U.S. Is a ‘Hotbed’ for Heart Disease


Heartache

Although fewer Americans overall are dying from heart disease than 40 years ago, researchers have found that the top “hotbeds” for heart disease have migrated to the Southern U.S. In the 1970s, the counties with the highest heart disease rates were clustered in the northeast, according to a new study, HealthDay reports. Now, they are concentrated in what is considered the “deep” South, a region where the Latino population is large. The U.S. southwest, for example, is by far the most Latino region of the country, but the entire Latino population is booming in the South, according to a report. The study has not determined the causes for the shift, only the trend. “[From] other studies we know the socioeconomic conditions of a county can affect rates of smoking and ...

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Teens and Kids Kick Tobacco Butts



March 16 is National Kick Butts Day—a day for kids and teens to take a stand against smoking. According to national data, 95% of smokers began smoking before turning 21 and more than 11% of Latino adults are current smokers. How can you raise awareness? Join the movement today by sharing your story on social media using #IKickButts and check out the live gallery of leaders kicking ...

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“Cold Turkey” Best Way to Quit Smoking, Study Finds



If you want to quit smoking, it is better to quit all at once, NBC Health reports. A study by Oxford University “randomly assigned almost 700 adult smokers to either an abrupt quitting or gradual reduction group. Each person set a 'quit day' of two weeks after they entered the study, and saw a research nurse once a week until then.” After 4 weeks of tracking 700 adults, researchers found that 40% of the gradual group were not smoking compared to 49% of the abrupt quit group. "However, with smoking, the norm is to advise people to stop all at once and our study found evidence to support that," Nicola Lindson-Hawley, lead study author told Reuters Health by email. "What we found was that more people managed to quit when they stopped smoking all in one go than when they gradually ...

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8 Jobs that Can Harm Your Heart


Heartache

Eight professions are among the most challenging to a person's heart health—salesperson, administrative support staff, police officers and firefighters, transportation/material movers, a grocery/consumer store employee—according to new research, CNN reports. American Heart Association researchers studies health habits of over 5,500 people age 45 or older who did not have a history of heart disease or stroke. The habits include: blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, fitness levels, diet, smoking, and obesity. Most salespeople surveyed were determined to have poor eating habits (68%) and poor cholesterol levels (69%). Of administrative staff, less than 21% met recommended physical activity standards. Despite the fitness standards of many police and fire departments, ...

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