For Maria Hernandez, fighting for health equity hits close to home. When her dad was in the hospital fighting cancer, Hernandez had a realization. “He’s being wheeled into the surgical unit, and he's with me and my mom and my two brothers, and we're all speaking Spanish, wishing him well. And all of a sudden, he puts up his hand and says, ‘Stop, don't speak Spanish, they're going to think I'm stupid, and they're not going to help me.’ And that just took my breath away,” Hernandez said. It made her realize that healthcare organizations must do more to address implicit bias. “Here I was, working on diversity and inclusion issues in major corporations. And I thought, what is healthcare doing about this? And so I started looking into this,” Hernandez ...
A medida que las vacunas contra el COVID-19 de Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna y Johnson & Johnson continúan distribuyéndose en todo el país, nos estamos acercando a la inmunidad colectiva y a poner fin a la pandemia. Un obstáculo en este camino es la desconfianza en las vacunas. La desconfianza en las vacunas es causada por una variedad de fuentes, como el trauma histórico por el maltrato en la atención de salud y la información falsa sobre las vacunas que circula en las redes sociales. La información falsa sobre las vacunas es especialmente peligrosa, ya que a menudo está dirigirá a las comunidades latinas y negras, que se han visto afectadas de manera desproporcionada por el COVID-19 y son las comunidades que más necesitan la vacuna. Repasemos las preguntas más ...
Close to 40% of Americans struggle to meet the rising costs of housing, and Latinos especially face hardship in affordable housing as the pandemic worsened inequities, says a new report. As the economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans are struggling with soaring home and rent prices, affordability issues, and the risk of eviction and foreclosure, according to The State of the Nation’s Housing 2021 from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Latinos and other people of color are impacted on a greater scale. "Millions of households that lost income during the shutdowns are behind on their housing payments and on the brink of eviction or foreclosure," the report states. "A disproportionately large share of these at-risk households are renters with ...
The Latino community has disproportionately felt the burden of COVID-19. COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have been higher for Latinos than other groups. “The pandemic has disproportionately hit Latinos throughout the country, who are already at a disadvantage as they are likely to work in front-line jobs and have the highest uninsured rates,” writes Cynthia Silva, according to NBC News. As more Latinos have been hospitalized, healthcare providers have noticed the need for Latino nurses who can provide culturally competent, bilingual services. Unfortunately, less than 6% of nurses are Latino, mostly due to systemic barriers that prevent Latino students from pursuing a career in nursing. Let’s explore the importance of culturally competent healthcare and ...
Luz Garcini wants to help Latinos heal from the loss of a loved one. “One of the biggest needs that we see in the community right now is that there has been a lot of loss and grief, particularly associated to the loss of loved ones over the current [COVID-19] pandemic, that has not been addressed,” Garcini said. Garcini is a clinical psychologist and epidemiologist. She works as an assistant professor at the Center for Research to Advance Community Health (ReACH) at UT Health San Antonio. To further the study of loss and grief among Latino immigrants, Garcini and her team at ReACH created a monthly webinar series, “Paths: Building Strength in the Face of Loss,” to help Latinos understand grief and build coping skills and strength. She hopes the series will help Latinos ...
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, states have struggled with what to do when it comes to schools and online learning. In the beginning of the pandemic when not as much was known about the virus, schools were shut down and students were sent home to do virtual learning. But this brought up issues of internet accessibility for rural, low-income families, along with difficulties for parents who suddenly needed to work and provide childcare during the day. As COVID-19 vaccinations have grown and cases are slowly decreasing, many administrators are figuring out what school will look like this fall. “We have to be able to pivot,” said Kaweeda Adams, a superintendent in Albany, NY, according to the Washington Post. Let’s take a look at how safe schools are, what Latino ...
Latinos are getting vaccinated for the COVID-19 vaccine at much lower rates. Why is this? How can we build vaccine confidence? Dr. Amelie Ramirez and her team at Salud America! at UT Health San Antonio are working hard to promote vaccine confidence and answer Latinos' big questions about the vaccine. Ramirez is doing this in a variety of ways: Creating the Salud America! Latino COVID-19 Vaccine “Change of Heart” Bilingual Storytelling Campaign to share real Latinos who moved from vaccine hesitancy to vaccine confidence.
Producing Salud America!'s weekly updated post on U.S. Latino vaccination rates, ways to improve confidence, and how to overcome vaccine misinformation.
Joining the Latino USA podcast to answer Latinos' COVID-19 vaccine questions.
Providing a ...
You've probably seen or heard this phrase a lot recently: "We can do this." That's the slogan for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' "We Can Do This" / "Juntos Sí Podemos" COVID-19 Public Education Campaign. This national initiative aims to increase public confidence in uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and other basic prevention measures, such as mask wearing and social distancing. The "We Can Do This" campaign materials are in English, Spanish, and more. The campaign also has a "live" event series that pairs medical experts with prominent influencers to share information to help people feel confident about getting the vaccine. The events occur in the places where people already consume content, including social media, podcasts, and YouTube. The effort is ...
Helen Cordova knows how dangerous COVID-19 is. She’s been working on the frontline as an ICU nurse throughout the entire pandemic. “COVID was definitely a big shock for the healthcare community. There was just so much uncertainty and things we didn't know about it,” Cordova said. When the vaccine was first authorized for emergency use by the FDA in December 2020, Cordova was chosen to be one of the first recipients of the vaccine. But she was very nervous and didn’t originally want to get it. “Initially, I was absolutely not going to get the vaccine. I thought, ‘It was rushed, I won't trust it,’” Cordova said. But after consulting with her colleagues and reading the research from the clinical trials, Cordova knew it was safe and the right ...
