When Maria Rincon moved with her family from Venezuela to the U.S., she owned one book. When Rincon started school here, many expected nothing from her. Little did they know that Rincon had the resilience to overcome the traumatic experience of acculturation, and she has surpassed expectations and excelled in academia. In fact, Rincon, earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences at the University of South Florida in 2012 and then earned a master’s degree in epidemiology at Yale University in 2015. As an undergraduate in Florida, she contributed to diverse research, from molecular epidemiology at the Moffitt Cancer Center, to molecular mechanisms of disease in Methicillin-Resistant S. Aureus (MRSA). As a graduate student, Rincon has focused on infectious disease ...
Erica Chavez Santos grew up in the small rural town of Pateros, Wash., the daughter of diligent farmworkers from Mexico. She saw the many health inequities suffered by her parents and local Latinos. Chavez Santos wanted to help, and she became interested in understanding why these inequities occur and how to improve health outcomes. She is now a master’s-degree student in public health in sociomedical sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, where she also is active in the Black and Latinx Student Caucus. She hopes to work with underserved Latino communities in hopes of boosting farmworker justice and creating equitable policies that set the stage for better health. Chavez Santos respect and empathy for other people makes her the perfect ...
Oriana Perez strives to make others feel welcome and supported. Perez, who grew up along the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas, hopes to improve Latino health and provide mentorship for others, just like her mother always did. She puts this outlook into practice as a research coordinator at the Children’s Nutrition and Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine, with an interest in adapting healthy lifestyle programs for use among Latinos. She also has served as a consultant for the Pan American Health Organization, a health educator and screener at Interactive Health, Inc., a health educator at Methodist Health System, and a research coordinator for tobacco prevention projects for youth at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. A few years after completing ...
Luis Baez learned about true compassion from his Puerto Rican grandfather, who fought for Latino social justice all the way to the White House. He also got interested in science and math at an early age. So it’s no surprise that Baez, a native of Glendale, Wisc., is putting both his childhood interests and his compassionate nature together to study how to improve public health. He is currently a master’s-degree student in public health, specializing in epidemiology, at Loyola University Chicago. He is studying biostatistics in hopes of finding new ways to reduce cancer and HIV and improve the health of Latino and all people. To further his training and education, Baez applied for the Éxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training program. The program, led by Dr. ...
Rosalie Aguilar grew up watching her grandfather in his water treatment lab, purging pollutants to produce cleaner drinking water in Mexico. Her grandmother helped Latino reporters cover World War II stories. Aguilar’s successful grandparents gave her a desire to make a big difference to give Latinos a better chance to live a healthy, disease-free life. She’s doing just that as Project Coordinator of Salud America! at UT Health San Antonio, a national program that creates content to inspire people to drive community change for the health of Latino and all kids. “My childhood experiences have led me to a career trying to help others and improve the health of Latino children and families,” Aguilar said. “That is what motivates me.” Aguilar first joined Dr. Amelie ...
Many people don't officially start their day until they get a cup of coffee. That is especially true for Latinos. When it comes to coffee—hot, iced, black, or with cream and sugar—Latinos drink it more than any other racial/ethnic group, according to the National Coffee Association. A new study found that coffee does more than give you a morning boost. Coffee vs. Liver Cancer People who drank one cup of coffee every day had a 20% lower risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer, than those who drink no coffee, according to a study published in the journal BMJ Open. Study researchers say that increasing consumption of coffee may help prevent HCC, even in cases of pre-existing liver disease. Cancer is already the leading ...
About 20% of cancer diagnoses in the United States are for rare cancers, according to a new American Cancer Society report, MedicalXpress reports. The number is worse for racial/ethnic groups. Latinos face higher rates of rare cancers (24%), as do Asian/Pacific Islanders (22%), than blacks (20%) and whites (19%). Rare cancers challenge both patients and doctors. For most rare cancers, research to identify causes or ways for prevention or early detection is limited or nonexistent, according to MedicalXpress. Rare cancers also can be tough to diagnose and treat, leading to delays in diagnosis and less effective means of treatment than for more common cancers. "Efforts are needed to develop interventions for prevention, early detection, and treatment to reduce the burden of ...
Cancer rates continue to decrease among U.S. men, women, and children for all major racial/ethnic groups. That's the good news from the latest Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2014 from the National Cancer Institute and others. The bad news? Hispanics/Latinos had higher risk of death for many cancers, which may in part reflect treatment differences, according to the report. The report also had mixed findings on cancer survival rates, overall. "Survival improved over time for almost all cancers at every stage of diagnosis," said Dr. Ahmedin Jemal of the American Cancer Society and lead author of the study. "But survival remains very low for some types of cancer and for most types of cancers diagnosed at an advanced stage." Cancers with the lowest ...
Nopales are strong, resilient plants that endure in any environment. The same characteristics apply to Karen Aguirre. Aguirre learned perseverance from her parents who crossed over from Mexico nearly a dozen times to bring her to a better life, and from her mentor who cared for undocumented Latinos. She has vowed to fight for the oppressed and engage Latinos in health policy. Aguirre, an MPH candidate in Health Policy and Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago, recently was awarded the Chicago Schweitzer Fellowship and will receive funding to carry out a yearlong project with Latino high school students in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. The program is expected to become a pipeline system between an underserved community and neighboring ...
