Obtaining an education is one of the key social determinants of health. While Latinos have made great strides in this area in recent years – high school dropout rates are at an all-time low and two- and four-year college enrollments for Latinos is at an all-time high – Latinos still lag behind other racial and ethnic minorities in obtaining college degrees. The University of Michigan recently announced an initiative that could help many of the state’s Latino and low-income families achieve their goal of going to college. The school’s Board of Regents passed a program that will give free tuition for families who live in the state of Michigan (4.72% Latino population) and earn less than $65,000 per year. Dubbed the “Go Blue Guarantee,” the program will launch on January 1, ...
Since 2010, Detroit Swims has taught more than 5800 kids how to swim and aims to teach all kids in the Metro Detroit. Swimming is excellent for mental and physical health, as well as academic achievement, but of f the 120,000 children in the city, it’s estimated 100,000 of them can’t swim, according to one source. Detroit Swims is a nonprofit started by lifeguards in 2010 at the Boll Family YMCA to reduce disparities in swim ability. The lifeguards contributed $2000 out of their paycheck to teach the first 35 kids how to swim. Latino kids across the country often lack access to pools and swimming lessons, thus face higher rates of drowning and obesity related chronic disease compared to white kids. Detroit Swims has expanded to over six locations, and works with local ...
School suspensions are usually thought of as the last resort punishment for severe disruptions in the classroom. But did you know that children as young as three years old are being sent home for behavior problems which could have been addressed with positive school supports? In June of 2017, Texas House Bill 674 was passed which prohibits so called “discretionary suspensions” in Pre-K through 2nd grade children. These types of suspensions create a zero tolerance policy which studies have shown lead to higher rates of school dropout, lower academic performance, and decreased academic performance. This effect is widely known as the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”. Reasons for discretionary suspensions include horseplay, dress code violation, and violation of classroom rules. This ...
Access to healthcare is one of the main inequities that many Latinos regularly face. Despite being the largest racial and ethnic minority group in the country, they are still the largest uninsured group in the nation. In California, an effort has been underway for quite some time to help alleviate the problem. However, it has faced a temporary setback. A proposed program in the heavily Latino-populated state of California (38.39% Latino population) that would have given health benefits to all undocumented young adults as part of Medi-Cal failed to make it into the state’s budget. Known as “Health for All Young Adults,” the program has been spearheaded by the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, the California Immigrant Policy Center, and Health Access California. The ...
For many immigrant families, the current political climate adds a great deal of stress to their lives. Many Latinos already face inequities in health care; they are still the largest uninsured population in the U.S. In South Carolina (5.2% Latino population), this stress is now manifesting in even harsher ways. According to a report in The Post and Courier, many immigrant families in the state are not only foregoing health care services for the adult family members, but also their children. “We’ve gotten calls from the health department of mothers not coming to ... appointments, not showing up for immunizations,” said Julie Smithwick, executive director of the Latino assistance group PASOs. The statewide group connects Latino patients to health care resources across South ...
Summertime means fun time for kids. Well...it's supposed to. For Latino kids, it can also lessen already minimal opportunities to get healthy food or access safe places to play, according to Salud America! research. That's why we are spotlighting three heroes who are saving summer for Latino families!
Melissa & Mary
Rescuing Fruit for San Antonio Families Many families in San Antonio (63% Latino) live in food deserts. Ironically, there are lots of fruit trees in people's yards—but fruit often falls and rots. UTSA grad students Melissa Federspill and Mary Minor saw this waste. They wanted to harvest fruit trees to share with families. So they mapped local fruit trees online. They met with neighbors. They recruited volunteers to pick trees. And they contacted ...
Uniting the Latino community together with university researchers will—in theory—increase the well-being of this at-risk population. That's the idea behind the new Latinx Community-University Research Coalition of Indiana. The coalition seeks to bring together Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) faculty and staff, policy leaders, and community leaders to promote research and programmatic collaborations that are respectful of the needs, cultural identity and interests of the Latino population while removing barriers, according to a news release. Indiana's Latino population has grown from 1.8% in 1990 to 3.5% in 2000, to 6.0% in 2010. The number already had increased further to 6.7% by 2015. "We are all interested in increasing research ...
The city of San Francisco (15.1% Latino population) has long been a hub for the Latino community. However, as the city by the bay has grown in importance as one of the centers of the U.S. tech industry, many long-time Latino residents are struggling to keep up with the cost of living there. A new organization has been formed to help serve the low-income Latino communities in the area connect to community resources. The San Francisco Latino Parity and Equity Coalition conducted a study of heavily Latino-populated neighborhoods in the city (including the Mission, Bayview, Tenderloin, and Visitacion Valley areas). The coalition, which is made up of over a dozen groups, including the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), Jamestown Community Center, the Mission Language and ...
Latinos are the nation’s largest racial/ethnic minority group. They are expected to grow from 1 in 6 people today to 1 in 4 by 2035 and 1 in 3 by 2060. The long-term health and success of Latinos is going to be crucially important to the United States for decades to come. In the Pacific Northwest community of Walla Wall, WA (23.68% Latino population), one group has taken steps to ensure their Latino community has all the tools necessary for their success. The Walla Walla Valley Early Learning Coalition is offering a free, 10-week series of parenting master classes aimed at Latinos. Using “cultural perspective” and taught in Spanish, the Abriendo Puertas (Opening Doors) program is designed to support Latino parents in their roles as family leaders and teachers to their ...
