Air pollution is the world’s greatest environmental health threat. Sadly, Latinos and other minorities breathe 38% more polluted air than whites. It’s even worse in California, where the Latino (39.1%) and Black (6.5%) populations live in regions with the dirtiest air in the state, according to a new environmental report from California Environmental Protection Agency. "These folks primarily live in low-income, disadvantaged communities often found near ports, warehouses, rail yards, and factories that foul the air, pollute the water and rain toxins down on playgrounds, parks and backyards," writes Rocky Rushing of the San Francisco Chronicle about the new report.
California Air Quality
In California, 44% of Latinos live in communities with poor air quality, compared to ...
More than 150 worldwide medical experts issued a manifesto to fight liver disease, called NASH (nonalcoholic steatohepatitis), as part of the first-ever NASH Day on June 12, 2018. But just what is NASH? Why is it so important to Latinos?
NASH and Our Diets
NASH is a liver disease that stems from high-sugar, high fat diets. "To compensate, [our livers] start storing excess fat. If nothing changes, such as diet or exercise, our livers get inflamed — which is what we call hepatitis. Eventually, the disease progresses to nonalcoholic cirrhosis, liver failure, liver cancer, the need for a liver transplant and even death," according to a San Antonio Express-News report. NASH is a rising public health threat for several reasons. It could lead to needing a liver transplant, which ...
Transportation affects health. Latinos, for example, often face unsafe streets and big transportation hurdles that make it hard, costly, and even deadly to access basic and health needs. They end up suffering higher rates of disease, diabetes, depression, pedestrian injuries and deaths, and more. Yet transportation and public health professionals don’t always get together for solutions. Fortunately, the Transportation Research Board is enabling these connections. The Board created its Health & Transportation Subcommittee in 2011, hosted a topical conference and magazine edition in 2015, and will carve out space in its 2018 annual meeting to explore this topic. “[We aim] to identify, advance and publish research and information to expand and improve current ...
We know that children of migrant workers, who are predominantly Latino, grow up exposed to a high level of trauma, such as neglect, abuse, poverty, and low access to healthy food and safe places to play. Separation between parents and children also is "incredibly harmful," according to a report. Zoe E. Taylor, a researcher at Purdue University who is studying mental health and resiliency in the children of Latino migrant farmworkers, says parent attachment is critical to childhood well-being. "In these populations, teens are used to contributing to the family and the value of family has tremendous cultural significance," Taylor said, in a press release. "These teens may have additional burdens, making this an even more stressful situation. And at the same time, they are often a ...
U.S. Latinos are 1.5 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than whites. But the reasons for this big disparity is still poorly understood—and highly controversial. Scientists believe that many factors influence when Alzheimer's disease begins and how it progresses. The more they study this devastating disease, the more they realize that genes play an important role. Research conducted and funded by the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health and others is advancing our understanding of Alzheimer's disease genetics.
Genetic Mutation in Alzheimer's Disease
Some diseases are caused by a genetic mutation, or permanent change in one or more specific genes, according to a fact sheet by the National Institute on Aging. If a person inherits ...
The steady increase in human average life expectancy in the 20th century is considered one of the greatest accomplishments of public health. A person’s rate of aging has important implications for his/her risk of death and disease. Now scientists have developed a blood test that reveals how long a person has left to live, The Guardian reports. Researchers at Yale School of Public Health used a nationally representative U.S. sample to derive a person's “Phenotypic Age” based on 34 a linear combination of chronological age and nine multi-system clinical chemistry measures. The study result suggested that Phenotypic Age is significantly associated with all-cause mortality and cause-specific mortality. If a person’s phenotypic age is higher than their chronological ...
Effect of alcohol consumption on Alzheimer’s disease have been controversial. Some studies show alcohol has a protective effect against the disease, while other studies have pointed to a harmful role for alcohol in the development of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurocognitive diseases. A new study from the University of Illinois, Chicago found that some of the genes affected by alcohol and inflammation are also concerned with beta amyloid peptides. These peptides form the main component of the amyloid plaques found in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients, which causes negative impact on communication between the neurons. The study suggests that alcohol consumption, and its impact on the immune system and inflammation in the brain, may be the vehicle through which alcohol ...
The Safe Routes to School National Partnership (Safe Routes) is raising awareness to end over-policing as a safety solution in walking and biking initiatives. Racial profiling by police, for example, threatens drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists of color. These Latinos and other minorities, who already face less safe roads and fewer places to walk and bike, deal with a greater burden of traffic and pedestrian violations, too. Safe Routes wants you to stand up for minorities by sharing on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. “As walk and bike advocates, we need to come together to protect people in communities made vulnerable not only by missing and poorly maintained bike lanes and sidewalks and inequitable policies, but also by over-policing,” wrote Holly Nickel, coalitions and ...
Our own Amanda Merck recently joined HiMama’s The Preschool Podcast to talk about addressing childhood trauma in early childcare and schools to build better futures for Latino and all children. HiMama, which offers tools to help educators improve childhood development, hosts The Preschool Podcast every Tuesday with its co-founder and CEO Ron Spreeuwenberg and a guest. Merck, who curates content for Salud America! on early childhood development, joined podcast episode #103, Impacts of Trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences, on July 3, 2018. Merck spoke about the critical formative years from 0 to 5 in a child’s development and how childhood trauma, like abuse and poverty, affect a child’s body and brain. However, early childcare educators are rarely trained to deal with ...
