Jade Hércules, was born in July 2012 in Guatamala, where she was diagnosed with terminal liver disease. She needed a donor. Jade's condition deteriorated over the next year to the point where her parents thought, as she celebrated her first birthday in July 2013, she wasn't far from her final moments on earth. Then doctors at University of Chicago Hospital, where her family had come to seek treatment, told her parents a liver donor was found. “We were grateful to God for the parents who had the courage to donate their little boy’s organs because thanks to them our little girl is alive. We always think about the parents who made this miracle possible because it is truly a blessing that a year later although she is not yet walking, Jade can stand and is such a happy ...
Latinos comprise 16% of the U.S. population, but they account for 22% of all new HIV infections in the U.S. But Latinos often forgo HIV testing due to negative stigma, limited accessibility to testing, limited awareness of the risk of HIV/AIDS, and fear of having to disclose immigrant status. That's why it's important for Latinos to get tested for HIV, according to the Until There’s A Cure, a nonprofit founded in 1993 to create and sell a bracelet to raise funds to increase awareness, and to promote compassion, understanding, and responsibility about HIV/AIDS. Getting tested does not require disclosure of immigration status, according Until There’s A Cure, and can protect sexual partners from contracting the disease by using condoms, and those who are diagnosed with HIV can ...
Editor's Note: This is the story of a graduate of the 2013 Èxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training program. Apply by March 7, 2014, for the 2014 Èxito! program. Christina Carmona
San Antonio, Texas Born and raised in San Antonio, Christina Carmona has seen how Latinos here often don’t get access to the care they need, or they face cultural myths, financial barriers or a lack of knowledge of disease prevention. Carmona used this experience to fuel her drive to improve Latino health. Wanting to make a positive change in her community and serve as a role model for her children, Carmona earneda bachelor’s degree from The University of Texas San Antonio and is currently pursuing a master’s in public health degree at The University of Texas Health Science Center School ...
Shape Up San Francisco, a coalition of community leaders, wanted to know if kids in San Francisco were meeting state requirements for time spent in PE. They convened a group called the PE Advocates and began to study 20 elementary, four middle, and four high schools. After learning that almost 80% of elementary schools were not getting enough PE time, Shape Up SF’s PE Advocates partnered with school officials to develop a plan to change this. Now, thanks to the partnership, the district has 38 PE specialists to train teachers in the skills needed to provide students with quality PE.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: Local health advocates Christina Goette and Marianne Szeto were concerned about the city’s growing childhood obesity rates and health disparities. The number of overweight ...
CVS pharmacies have decided to stop selling cigarettes, according to several media reports. Will you quit, too? A free automated self-help “Stop Smoking” website is available in both English and Spanish to give Latinos various resources and tools to quit and track their quit progress. Visit the website in English or Spanish. The website is part of a study led by Redes En Acción: The National Latino Cancer Research Network, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute. The study is a collaboration between researchers at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Participants’ smoking status will be evaluated at 1, 3, and 6 months. This project has a very strict ...
Latino kids need Salud Heroes to help fight childhood obesity. Can you step up? Visit our new website, Salud America! Growing Healthy Change, to read stories about real-life Salud Heroes who are making healthy community changes—from improved marketing to increased access to healthy food and physical activity, etc.—for Latino kids in your neighborhood and across the nation. You can also upload your own Salud Hero stories and photos. Watch a video about the site and Salud Heroes...and be a Salud Hero today! The Growing Healthy Change website was created by Salud America!, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation based at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday. The ...
School Bites, a blog about bringing more healthy food into the school system, provides tips on having less junk food in the classroom on Valentines Day. Together the two healthy Valentine's Day posts include 27 unique ideas of how to incorporate healthier foods like fruits, vegetables, smoothies, and water into the classroom parties. There are also suggestions for active games to play during the day, like Musical Hearts or Valentine's Hopscotch. These activites can get kids moving, having fun, and thinking less about the sugary snacks that traditionally provided during classroom parties. These ideas are complied from her network of school-health blogs and ideas from other concerned parents. See the 2014 guide 12 Naturally Sweet Ideas for a Healthy School Valentine’s Day ...
If you could wave a magic wand, what would you do to fix school lunches? If money was no option, what would you do to bring healthier foods into schools? These are the kinds of questions students at Sunset High School in Del Norte County, California asked while dreaming-up big solutions to their less-than-great school food. Fed up with the pre-packaged lunches and unhealthy options, the youth organized and advocated for change, building partnerships and leadership skills—using the PICO community organizing model—that will last a lifetime. Del Norte County and Adjacent Tribal Lands (DNATL) is one of the 14 communities selected to participate in the Building Healthy Communities (BHC) program. Funded by The California Endowment, BHC is a ten-year, comprehensive community initiative ...
Latinos are projected to become the largest single racial/ethnic group in the state by March of this year, making up 39% of the state’s population, up from 32% in 2000, the Pew Research Center reports. That will make California only the second state, behind New Mexico, where Latinos are the plurality (they comprise the largest percentage of any group, but not more than half). Which state might be next? It may be Texas, according to Pew Research Center. Texas Latinos make up 38.2% of the population, versus, 44.4% of non-Latino whites, according to tabulations from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. In 2000, Latinos made up 31.9% and white non-Latino whites made up 52.4% of the state’s 20.8 million residents. These numbers indicate the Hispanic population ...
