Cancer is quickly becoming the No.1 killer in the United States and the leading cause of death among Latinos, Fox News reports. New health statistics show cancer is quickly overtaking heart disease as the top cause of death in the U.S., despite death rates falling in the last 25 years. According to government figures cancer is the “leading cause of death in certain groups of people, including Hispanics, Asians, and adults ages 40 to 79.” The American Cancer Society predicts there will be 1.7 million new cancer cases this year, and 600,000 deaths. “Government figures for 2014 show cancer was the leading cause of death in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, ...
Editor’s Note: This is the story of a graduate of the 2015 Èxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training program. Apply now for 2016. Jazmin Martinez
Anaheim, Calif. The strong mentorship and support of a faculty member at her university gave Jazmin Martinez the motivation to continue preparing for a career in Latino health disparities. Jazmin's ultimate goal is to obtain a doctorate in public health and focus on health disparities. Jazmin fundamentally believes that we need more ethnic minority professors in this country.
Jasmin obtained her bachelors at California State University, double-majoring in Chicano and Latino Studies and Political Science. She is currently working on her Masters in Public Health at CSULB. After completing her masters, Jazmin plans to ...
Colorado Health Foundation's #HealthiestCO Listening tour will be visiting cities all across Colorado. The tour allows grantees, community residents, and local leaders to share their perspectives and stories on health in their cities. The tour will visit 11 regions within Colorado and conclude the tour in the Spring of 2016 with the Building Better Health conference. To learn more about the tour and see dates and locations, click ...
A study by JAMA Pediatrics, researching three years of meal data from 1.7 million meal records within the Renton School District, showed a consistent rate of students choosing healthier foods and school meals. The nutritional quality of the meals was reviewed through the new standards put out by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. The study reported about 47 percent of students bought school lunches before the standards were put in place and 46 percent continued to buy school lunches. According to a recent article, many education experts showed concern to the new standards put in school meals, believing that students would not eat the healthier meals, but the study shows that many students are still choosing school lunches. Another study from 2014 by the Harvard School of ...
Penny Parham is helping students in Miami-Dade County (65% Latino) make healthier food choices more easily thanks to highlighted, veggie-promoting "Lean & Green" menus. By providing more vegetarian options, officials with the Miami-Dade County Public Schools hope to increase students’ consumption of fruits and vegetables and make healthy food the easy choice. How did they make it happen?
Lean & Green
Penny Parham, the administrative director at Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida, realized the school district’s initiative of “Meatless Mondays” were popular for students. However, these vegetarian meal options were only available to students on Mondays. The Miami-Dade school district is the fourth largest in the nation, and having healthy eating options on ...
Latinos have seen some of the biggest gains of any ethnic group under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), yet their uninsured rate remains higher than that of other groups. Enroll America and its partners are teaming up to encourage Latinos to take part in the ACA and obtain quality, affordable health insurance. Open enrollment for the ACA is currently underway and ends on January 31. Enroll America is offering these five tips for Latino families about their health insurance options: People with many different immigration statuses may be eligible to sign up: Both citizens and lawfully present non-citizens may be eligible for coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace, Medicaid, and CHIP.
Non-eligible family members can apply on behalf of eligible dependents. For example, ...
Las enfermedades respiratorias desproporcionalmente afectan a los latinos nacidos en el extranjero según un reciente estudio publicado el American Journal of Public Health, reporta Latin Post. Los que trabajan en las áreas de construcción, agronomía y fabricas tienen un riesgo mas alto. En la cultura mexicana, los problemas respiratorios son usualmente tratados con medicinas herbales, pero estos métodos no son efectivos a la hora de tratar problemas serios como el asma. “Limon, llantén, canela son algunas de las hierbas usulmante utilizadas para tratar problemas respiratorios en la comunidad latina. Sin embargo problemas severos no son curables es por eso que la prevención es importante para prevenir contagios. El lavarse las manos y consumir suficientes vitaminas ...
More than a quarter of the country’s senior citizens are hungry or at nutritional risk, New America Media reports. Researchers at the Gerontological Society of America determined that two-thirds of older, hospitalized patients are poorly nourished. Malnutrition is especially challenging for individuals older than 65 as it can trigger or worsen chronic diseases. Poor nutrition may increase the chances of infection, delay normal healing and result in longer hospital stays. Malnutrition among Latino elders is a greater crisis as they tend to be among the fiscally poorer. “Malnutrition literally means ‘bad’ nutrition,” said Lauri M. Wright, a researcher and nutritionist from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “A big issue for our senior population is the lack of ...
A high-sugar diet doesn’t only increase the risk of obesity and diabetes, but it may also increase your risk of breast and lung cancer, The Houston Chronicle reports. For the study University of Texas M.D. Anderson researchers put mice in different groups and fed one of four diets. After six months the researchers concluded that mice on a starch diet “had measurable tumors, whereas 50 to 58 per cent of the mice on sucrose-enriched diets had developed mammary tumors.” The team of researchers also concluded that the risk of lung metastases was significantly higher in mice on the sucrose or fructose rich diet. "We found that sucrose intake in mice comparable to levels of Western diets led to increased tumor growth and metastasis, when compared to a non-sugar starch diet," said ...
