No money. No quality childcare. No social or legal support. These big stressors plague low-income parents, and can spur domestic strife and child maltreatment, hampering a child’s early and future development. Fortunately, Project DULCE is testing a unique solution. The project adds a “family specialist” to a child’s pediatric healthcare team. The specialist then connects low-income families to social services─like food stamps, housing vouchers, and legal services─to reduce economic stress and prevent maltreatment. Can this kind of an “upstream-downstream” solution work?
The Upstream-Downstream Parable
Public health advocates often talk about health in an “upstream-downstream” fashion. They want to highlight the importance of prevention and the influence ...
Latinos often mistrust of doctors and scientists. In turn, they don't seek preventive healthcare or join helpful clinical trials. In fact, even though Latinos make up 17.8% of the national population and are the largest ethnic minority, Latinos comprised of less than 7.6% of clinical trial participants. The Global Institute for Hispanic Health aims to change all that.
Global Institute for Hispanic Health
The Texas A&M University System and Driscoll Children’s Hospital launched the Global Institute for Hispanic Health in 2016. It's based at Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi. It has other campuses in Brownsville, Harlingen, McAllen, Laredo, and Victoria. The Global Institute brings researchers, clinicians, and communities together to improve Latinos' ...
We already know that where we live plays a significant role in our health. Latinos and others living in rural areas struggle to access healthcare. They are more likely to die from heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, stroke, and unintentional injuries than their urban counterparts. A grassroots effort aims to change that. ¡Vivir Mi Vida!, a pilot program at the University of Southern California (USC), is improving the health of rural, middle-age Latinos.
¡Vivir Mi Vida!
¡Vivir Mi Vida! is a 16-week lifestyle intervention translated as “Live My Life!” It aims to optimize health outcomes in Latino patients. Researchers worked with community partners to develop ¡Vivir Mi Vida! five years ago at USC’s Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and ...
Traumatic events, like sexual assault, physically change our brain, releasing stress hormones which influence perception, reaction and memory. Yet, many law enforcement agencies have lacked the training opportunities, tools, resources, and support needed to effectively address these crimes and the traumatized victims, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women. To raise awareness about the neurobiological impact of trauma and trauma-informed investigative strategies, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) created a two-day Trauma Informed Sexual Assault Investigation Training.
Sexual Assault in the US
One in three women and one in six men have experienced some form of contact sexual violence during their ...
“Affordable living” is a myth for many people in San Antonio, Texas (63.6% Latino). More than half of people here don’t make the $18 an hour needed to afford the median apartment rent. Population and job growth outpace housing by 2.3 to 1. Affordable housing is lacking. Evictions nearly doubled between 2013 and 2016. This threatens economic opportunity and health for many Latino families. That’s why the Mayor’s Housing Policy Task Force’s new report urges the San Antonio City Council to budget for new housing jobs, triple city spending on affordable housing production and rehabilitation, and even change the city’s charter to create new ways to pay for more affordable housing. “For us to make a significant impact, it’s going to require a long view and ...
Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of Salud America! at the UT Health San Antonio, has received a new $1.3 million prevention grant to enable local doctors to guide patients who smoke to join a smartphone-based quit smoking service. The grant is from the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) The funding will enhance tobacco screening and treatment for two groups. One is primary care patients at the UT Health Physicians medical practice. The other is oncology care patients at UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson Cancer Center. During routine patient visits, doctors will assess and track if a patient smokes. They will then counsel and prompt patients to use their smartphones to join Quitxt. Quitxt encourages quitting smoking via bilingual text or Facebook ...
In Columbus, Ohio (5.8% Latino), the diverse Southern Orchards neighborhood suffers racism, a lack of affordable housing, economic segregation, violent crime, poverty, and expensive medical use. That’s why the whole neighborhood has become a hospital’s “patient.” Nationwide Children’s Hospital saw “unsafe conditions” as their patient’s top symptom. They diagnosed their patient with “unstable housing,” which is known to cause many economic, social, and health hardships, especially for Latinos and other people of color. The hospital prescribed a “housing intervention” and spent the past 10 years revitalizing Columbus’ South Side and Southern Orchards neighborhood through its Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families (HNHF) partnership with faith, community, ...
Buses don’t run to a Latino mobile home community outside Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Instead, people there are forced to rely on cars─dangerous, expensive, polluting cars─ when they need to get to jobs, food, and healthcare. This isolates them from opportunities for health, jobs, and affordable housing, just like many other suburban and rural parts of our nation. Fortunately, planned public transit improvements will enable more buses across the Twin Cities, including the mobile home community. But how? Will it work for Latinos and all vulnerable neighborhoods?
Twin Cities Growing in Population, Traffic
The area to the east of the Twin Cities─the Interstate 94 (I-94) corridor─is expected to see a 24% increase in population and a 30% increase in jobs by 2040, according ...
Sonja Trauss hated her commute. Driving her car a long way from home to her job as a math teacher was unproductive, wasted time. It was expensive. It was stressful, harming her physical and mental health. And it was dangerous. Yet this was Trauss’ reality with no affordable housing near her job. But Trauss grew tired of paying so much time, money, and stress to drive a car because of a shortage of affordable housing in Marin County (16.1% Latino) in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. She decided to make a stand. Trauss formed a group to push for more affordable housing and challenged developers, decision-makers, and opposition to affordable housing in this region. Did it work?
Transportation Costs Matter for Affordable Housing
Behind housework, the daily car ...
