The climate crisis is especially impacting Latinos and other people of color. Despite being low contributors to the rate of emissions—toxins that are one of the main issues spurring global warming—they are experiencing worse health outcomes, due to rising temperatures and extreme weather events. This is why advocates have been calling for environmental justice, a strategy to address climate change through a lens that focuses on those who are harmed most. Electric cars are an emerging piece of environmental justice. As more and more electric vehicles hit the market, experts are saying these cars can drive efforts toward environmental justice for people of color. “The electric vehicle transition has great potential to benefit Black and Latino communities, which are ...
Poverty disproportionately impacts Latinos and other people of color. Child poverty rates are more than twice as high for U.S. Latino children (23.7%) than White children (8.9%), according to a Salud America! research review. Hardships stemming from poverty, like difficulty meeting basic needs for food, medicine, housing, and transportation, also lead to worse health and life outcomes. We know that poverty hurts poor neighborhoods and counties that are predominately non-white and low-income. However, did you know that even in the healthiest counties, children of color still experience poverty at often twice the rate of white children? “Nearly 1 in 10 children are living in poverty in the nation’s healthiest counties and children of color, particularly Black, Hispanic ...
Chris David is ready for the pandemic to be over. It’s dramatically hurt his business and taken friends and family away from him. Even though he had heard heard folks say the shots will make your skin shed, damage your DNA, and are part of a secret conspiracy to get people to accept government control, he decided to get his vaccine so that he can keep his family, friends, and customers safe, and so that we can put an end to COVID once and for all. “To me, it's no big deal to get vaccinated. Help the rest of the planet out. Let's do it together,” Chris said. Find COVID-19 vaccine locations near you with Salud.to/findvaccine!
How COVID-19 Hurt His Business
Chris is a Navy combat veteran who is originally from Michigan. He’s lived outside of Austin in a rural area of ...
We already know secondhand smoke is bad for you. But several recent studies further blame secondhand smoke for its harmful impact on the brain and body. Long-term exposure to second-hand smoke results in lower body weight and cognitive impairments, according to new research in mice led by Oregon Health & Science University. Researchers exposed mice to 168 minutes of secondhand smoke a day for 10 months. They found that secondhand smoke harms even "healthy" mice, altered the hippocampus region of the brain, and impacted cognition, especially among males. "Many people still smoke, and these findings suggest that the long-term health effects can be quite serious for people who are chronically exposed to second-hand smoke," said lead author Dr. Jacob Raber.
Why is this ...
Growing up in a working-class, union family, Dominic Aliano saw firsthand how local governance could help people in his hometown. Aliano now serves as the Vice Mayor of that city, Concord, Calif (29.9% Latino). He has led numerous initiatives to improve life in Concord ─ including the city’s smoke-free multifamily housing ordinance, which prohibits smoking inside units of all apartments. Smoke-free multifamily housing helps protect families who face toxic secondhand smoke exposure and other systemic inequities where they live, according to Aliano. “This legislation and ones like it are really important for people, especially those in the communities that I represent, who are mostly renters in multi-family housing complexes,” he said. “Sometimes landlords take ...
Millions of teens are hooked on vaping. In 2017, 1 of 10 U.S. high school students used e-cigarettes. In 2019, 1 of 3 U.S. high school students used e-cigarettes, according to CDC data. As the popularity of youth vaping and e-cigarettes has surged, so has the public's confusion over the health risks these products pose. The health risks are real. The U.S. Surgeon general called teen vaping a national health epidemic. The World Health Organization reports e-cigarettes are "not harmless" and "pose risks to users and non-users." Many groups are trying to get the word out. Several innovative campaigns, many of which are bilingual to help reach Latino audiences, are working to address health issues like youth use of e-cigarettes and vaping.
1. CDC: 'Protecting Young People from ...
Many people know secondhand smoke is a danger to health. However, most people, including many health professionals, don't realize just how dangerous it is, especially inside multifamily housing like apartment buildings.
Why is Secondhand Smoke a Big Threat to Health?
According to the American Lung Association: Secondhand smoke causes approximately 7,330 deaths from lung cancer and 33,950 deaths from heart disease each year.
Between 1964 and 2014, 2.5 million people died from exposure to secondhand smoke, according to the 2014 report from the U.S. Surgeon General. The report also concluded that secondhand smoke is a definitive cause of stroke.
There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or ...
Smoking and COVID-19 can each kill. And when you compound one's effect on the other, the harm is clearly evident. Amid a pandemic that has killed about 100,000 Latinos, there has been a significant drop in the number of people who are attempting to quit smoking using services provided by healthcare organizations, according to a recent report from the North American Quitline Consortium (NAQC). This is alarming considering the dangers of smoking amid the current coronavirus infecting people across the nation, according to Dr. Susan Walley, a tobacco control expert and professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham. “Smokers are at a higher risk for greater complications such as death, admission to intensive care and mechanical ventilation when they contract COVID-19,” she ...
Secondhand smoke damages people’s health every day, including those who live in or occupy places that allow smoking. In Horizon City—a suburb outside of El Paso, one of the cities with the state’s highest Latino population (% Latino)—local leaders just banned smoking in public spaces and businesses. The ban aims to ensure that all who live in the Texas suburb can live without having to breathe in smoke, according to Eva Olivas, the community impact director for the American Heart Association of El Paso and a Horizon City resident. “When people live and work in a smoke-free environment, they can literally breathe easier because they aren’t being exposed to the diseases and risks that come from secondhand smoke,” she told the El Paso Herald-Post. “Far too many ...
