No parent should have to face the sheer agony of losing a baby. But it happened to Servando Salinas and Roxanne Alvarez. The San Antonio parents recently spent time at a relative's house. So Salinas and Alvarez had their eight-month-old daughter, Heaven, sleep in bed with them. When Salinas woke up, he noticed Heaven was not breathing. They called EMS, but the baby was pronounced dead at the scene, according to FOX-29. “I couldn't move. I couldn't stand. I was crying so much,” Salinas told Fox-29. Sadly, in two San Antonio zip codes—mostly Latino 78203 and 78220—Latina mothers have the highest infant death rates in the state, says a UT System study. That's why we are glad to see that San Antonio leaders, health advocates, parents, and groups are stepping up to ...
Life happens. Would you be able to come up with $1,000 for an emergency like a car wreck, a broken arm, or a busted air conditioner? Sadly, 61% of Latino and all Americans say they could not pay for an unplanned emergency expense, according to a report by financial site Bankrate. “Even though unemployment is down and there's been a recent uptick in wages, we aren't seeing the needle move savings,” said Greg McBride of Bankrate told CNN Money. Unexpected bills and expenses aren’t uncommon. More than 30% of all U.S. households had at least one unplanned expense in 2017. But most Americans don’t have an ability to cover it. Almost one in five Americans said they would put the expense on a credit card, Bankrate reports. This usually makes the expense even higher in ...
More than 700 Salud America! members and thousands of other people and groups across the nation submitted formal public comments to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to oppose its proposal to weaken school nutrition standards! Way to go, Salud America! family! These comments urge the USDA to reconsider its proposal, announced Nov. 29, 2017, to allow schools to serve of refined grains over whole grains, flavored milk, and higher levels of salt in meals. The USDA has not announced any action since the end of the public comment period on Jan. 29, 2018. Still, there now is hope for the many Latino kids who depend on school lunch for a healthy meal, thanks to members of the Salud America! network and others who took action!
The Salud America! Response
The USDA proposal ...
Does Tom Brady have a face that can stop traffic? Boston P.E. teacher Sam Balto wanted to find out. Balto laminated a photo of Brady to make a street sign. He put the sign in the street to slow drivers and keep students safe as they walked to his 62% Latino school, Ellis Elementary, in the city's Roxbury neighborhood, the Boston Globe reports. Before Brady: Drivers sped up to 55 mph in a 20 mph school zone. Few yielded. Some ran over crosswalk signs. After Brady: Drivers slowed down. Smiled more. “It definitely helped to get cars to slow down," Balto recently told Salud America! via Twitter.
The Brady Experiment
Balto first brought the Brady-as-crosswalk idea to WalkBoston. Brendan Kearney of WalkBoston said they spit-balled the idea on a walk audit. The audit found ...
The White House has proposed changing immigration policy to allow citizenship for up to 1.8 million young people brought into the U.S. as children—in addition to a $25 billion border wall and other security measures, USA Today reports. The proposed bill would blaze a path to citizenship for DREAMers, undocument immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. DREAMers have been in limbo since the Trump Administration rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was created by the Obama Administration to allow undocumented children brought to the U.S. to remain here. The bill, which will be introduced to the House and Senate in the coming weeks, would for the first time provide a clear path to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants that ...
A pedestrian is killed by a motor vehicle once a week, on average, in San Antonio. In fact, 219 pedestrians died and 607 were severely injured in nearly 4,000 pedestrian-vehicle collisions from 2011-2015 on San Antonio roadways. That's a worse rate than Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, and many other cities. It's even worse in San Antonio's lower-income areas. In these areas, communities are designed for tires and steel, rather than people. When people don't feel safe to walk for health, recreation, or transportation, it harms their quality of life. They don't have an equitable chance to live healthier lives. San Antonio leaders are working to create safer streets for all. So officials launched a Vision Zero initiative and are continuing to analyze geographical data to ...
Latino and other kids with mental health issues may not understand their feelings. Parents and schools may not know how to deal with children who experience trauma or depression. Sadly, this creates an environment where Latinos—already less likely than their white peers to use mental healthcare services—struggle with suicide and other poor health and academic outcomes. Mental Health America is here to help.
How a Suicide Attempt Started It All
Mental Health America formed more than 100 years ago. In the early 1900s, Clifford Beers was suffering from bipolar disorder after the death of his old brother. Beers attempted to take his own life by jumping off of a three story building. Clifford was severely injured and placed in an institution, where he reported being ...
Did you know eight of every 1,000 Texas kids are victims of child abuse? Sadly, that number is even higher in certain parts of San Antonio. That includes San Antonio's District 5, a largely Latino district on the West Side where families struggle with domestic violence, pregnancy, and other trauma, according to Texas Public Radio. Shirley Gonzales, the City Council representative for District 5, wanted to help. Gonzales teamed with Victoria Salas of Family Service Association to find an innovative way—promotoras—to prevent trends that lead to child abuse.
The Need for Child Abuse Prevention
Across the U.S., 78% of Latino kids suffer at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE), such as poverty, neglect, and child abuse, according to a recent Salud America! ...
A controversial new law could force schools in Kentucky to start sex education in fourth grade, according to Lexington Herald Reader. What would this mean for Latinos? Teen pregnancy? Mental health?
A Big Proposal for Earlier Sex Education Kentucky (3.5% Latino) has the seventh-highest teen birth rate in the United States. Tom Burch, a state representative, introduced House Bill 80 to lower those rates by arming students with more knowledge about their body, according to Lexington Herald Reader. Sex education is not mentioned in some homes because it can be hard to talk about, or embarrassing for parents and kids. Schools thus are sometimes the main path to sex education. Most schools are required to teach sex education. But it's usually to older students starting in ...
