Salud America! Guest Blogger
Jefferson Dental Clinics Fewer than 1 in 3 people floss daily. On top of that, the U.S. federal government recently made a controversial ruling to quietly remove flossing from its list of dietary guidelines, after having supported floss since 1979, due to mixed research results on the benefits of flossing. We can all toss the floss, right? Wrong. Flossing remains an effective method to remove food particles and buildup from between the teeth, and help people reach the plaque where it does form between the teeth, said Dr. Leslie Renee Townsend, regional dental director for Jefferson Dental. "Leaving particles and buildup trapped between the teeth is a quick route to developing decay and disease around the teeth and gums," Townsend ...
Soda, sweet tea, energy drinks, sports drinks, all have something in common in Berkely, they are sugar-filled and taxed. The city's 1-cent-per-ounce excise tax, which began collecting taxes in March 2015, has now been shown to benefit public health efforts that helped support the tax. A new study, released Tuesday, 2016 in the American Journal of Public Health, reveals how over 2,679 people in low-income neighborhoods across San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, CA are increasing water consumption and decreasing soda consumption. Not only are people drinking more water, but millions of funds from the excise tax will now help schools with gardens and work to build more community nutrition and health efforts. Whether it's the soda tax or the awareness of the dangers of sugary drinks ...
Access to safe parks plays a huge role in overall health and wellness by promoting promoting physical activity and improving mental health. Parks even have the potential to reduce health care costs. Unfortunately, there are inequities in Latino kids' access to parks and safe places to play; therefore, they are at increased risk for mental and physical health problems, according to a Salud America! research review. Learn more about why equitable access to safe places to walk and play are so important here. The National Park Service celebrates 100 years of stewardship the week of August 22, 2016. To celebrate this milestone in American history, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health blog's editorial team asked six leaders to their reasons why parks matter for ...
When it comes to traffic safety, the U.S. lags far behind other countries. The National Highway Traffic Safety Association's (NHTSA’s) analysis of 2015 data shows that 35,200 individuals were killed on U.S. roads last year, which is the largest year-over-year percentage increase (7.7%) since national record-keeping began. Traffic safety is a public health issue. It is also a social justice issue because there are drastic disparities in fatalities and injuries among people walking and biking, and minorities. "We won’t save the number of lives we aim to without shifting our understanding of traffic violence from an individual behavior problem to a design, policy, and organizational practices problem," according to the Vision Zero Network. Moreover, the shift in ...
Researchers in the Department of Public Health at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich. reveal that limited access to healthy food stores, walkable neighborhoods, and healthy social environments may set the stage for heart disease. In the study, researchers studied over 5,000 adults over a twelve year period, checking coronary artery calcium and amounts of atherosclerosis in their arteries, a disease that can harden arteries and increase the risk of heart disease. The common thread among the 86 percent of adults with coronary artery calcium, was the decreased access to heart-healthy food. Co-lead author Ella August, Ph.D., explained in a recent article that the only significant factor that deters or increases the risk of calcium build-up in the arteries were if ...
Since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, the number of uninsured people in the United States has declined by an estimated 20 million. The percentage of people without health insurance has also fallen to an historic low. Despite these monumental gains, there are still 24 million people lacking health insurance. The largest number of these individuals are still Latinos. Using data from the Commonwealth Fund Affordable Care Art Tracking Survey to examine the characteristics of the remaining uninsured adults to determine the reasons they for not enrolling in the marketplace plans or Medicaid. Prior to the ACA, people most at risk of being uninsured were those that didn’t have coverage through their place of employment. Latinos and other racial and ethnic ...
About 60% of kids under the age of 6 are placed in some form of non-parental care-early childcare and education (ECE)-during the work week. Thus, these settings are promising environments to provide obesity-prevention resources and establish physical activity habits early in childhood, particularly for Latino kids who are at greater risk for obesity-related health problems than their white peers. In 2012, researchers in Wisconsin developed a year-long, quasi-experimental study to examine the efficacy of the Active Early guide, an 80-page guide developed by experts and statewide partners in the fields of ECE, public health, and physical activity, to improve physical activity opportunities in ECE settings using low- to no-cost strategies along with training and environmental ...
A new study published in Genome Biology found that despite significant health disparities, Latinos age at a slower rate than individuals of other ethnicities. Researchers used 18 sets of data from DNA samples of nearly 6,000 people that representing seven different ethnicities, including two African groups, African-Americans, Caucasians, East Asians, Latinos and an indigenous people genetically related to Latinos called the Tsimane. “Latinos live longer than Caucasians, despite experiencing higher rates of diabetes and other diseases,” Steve Horvath, lead author and professor of human genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, said in a news release. “Our study helps explain this by demonstrating that Latinos age more slowly at the ...
A new black stop sign label is being placed on packaged foods to help Chileans understand how much sugar, salt, fat, and calories are in their favorite foods. The increase of packaged food consumption has risen across all populations in Chile, states the local article, showing how Chile is now the world's largest per-capita consumer of sugary drinks, more than Mexico and the United States. Increased consumption of unhealthy packaged foods and sugary drinks along with half of the countries deaths being stomach and gallbladder cancers, has health officials concerned. A recent Swedish study revealed that people who consumed more than two sugary drinks a day had a higher risk of developing gallbladder tumors and 79% higher odds of getting biliary tract cancer. The labels are to ...
