Salud America! Guest Blogger
Jefferson Dental Care You've heard it before: Brushing your teeth twice a day and flossing are two of the best ways to keep your mouth healthy. But do Latinos and others follow this advice? Actually, 30% of Americans do not brush their teeth twice a day, according to figures from the American Dental Association. Skipping brushing can lead to tooth decay—which disproportionately occurs in Latino children—tooth loss and other serious health problems. “Poor oral health has been linked to chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart attack, stroke, breast cancer and many others,” said Dr. Leslie Renee Townsend, regional dental director for Jefferson Dental Care. “Moreover, at-home dental care is crucial to keeping plaque and tartar from ...
Latino communities, in particular, could benefit from Complete Streets given that they are less likely to own a vehicle, have higher rates of obesity, and fewer bicycle fatalities than Whites. However, very little is known about the implementation of these policies. Researchers at the University of Chicago at Illinois examined what provisions in complete streets policies lead to more equitable implementation and higher physical activity levels in communities and compiled their findings into the following lessons learned and strategies: Examining Equity in Completes Policies
Exploring the Association Between Complete Streets Policies and Taking Public Transit to Work
Prioritizing Transportation Equity through Complete Streets Safe routes to healthy food is particularly ...
Grants up to $90,000 are now available for those focused on helping kids grow up at a healthy weight through state, local and tribal public policy campaigns. Applicants can apply to the Voices for Healthy Kids grant by Thursday, December 15th, 2016 and applications must be specific to an individual campaign focused on changing public policy in one state, local or tribal geographic location and must align with one of the Voices for Healthy Kids policy priorities. To learn more, visit the Voices for Healthy Kids Policy Lever site and review the policy priorities, and submit applications via email to voicesforhealthykids@heart.org. The support for this grant is through the collaboration of The American Heart Association and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, working in ...
Although she wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish growing up, Zandra Perez’s grandmother made sure she knew her roots by helping her become bilingual. Perez also draws on her faith and believes in the value of all lives. As such, Perez is working hard as a nurse to provide quality care for underserved Latinos. She earned her nursing degree from the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio and is currently one of two educators working to recruit rural area clinics to participate in eradicating tuberculosis by screening and treating for latent tuberculosis. Perez hopes to educate her patients on the importance of health screenings and preventative care. So she applied for the Éxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training program, which recruits 25 master’s-level students ...
Thirty-four of 56 WIC State Agencies reported modest decreases in obesity among young children from 2010 to 2014; however, Hispanic children still had higher rates of obesity than their peers, according to the study published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, The CDC worked in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to monitor obesity among toddlers aged 2-4 from low-income families using data from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Woman, Infants, and Children (WIC) Participants and Characteristics. These decreases in obesity rates are likely due to obesity prevention efforts at the community, state, and national levels, such as the USDA redesign of WIC food packages to meet the special nutritional needs of low-income ...
Si hay algo que a los niños no les gustan oír, es lo siguiente: “Es tiempo recibir las vacunas.” Cuando se trata de recibir la vacuna contra la gripe, cada año muchos niños – casi un tercio de todos los niños vacunados – lo evitan y en vez reciben el “FluMist”, un método de forma de aerosol nasal que es alternativo a la inyección tradicional. Pero después de más de una década de ser un alternativo confiable, este año no está disponible debido a que el CDC ha encontrado que no es un método efectivo. Pero la inyección tradicional contra la gripe sí está disponible y es efectiva. El CDC y Kaiser Permanente recomiendan que personas mayores de seis meses deban recibir la vacuna cada año. La gripe es una enfermedad grave y la vacuna es la mejor forma de ...
We all know that breastfeeding saves live and money, yet many moms, especially Latina moms, do not meet their own personal breastfeeding goals. Why not? According to a framing brief by Berkeley Media Studies Group (BMSG), the story on breastfeeding is narrowly framed around a portrait of the mother and baby rather than the context of real women's lives in which it takes place. Consider why Starbucks' executives get lactation rooms, but baristas have to lock themselves in the bathroom to pump breast milk. Advocates should look beyond the portrait towards to the landscape-social, cultural, political, structural, and environmental factors that make it difficult to breastfeed, like lack of support in hospitals, insufficient time and space in the workplace, unfriendly businesses, ...
Smoking is a tough opponent to beat. Quitxt is a new free text-message service that turns your mobile phone into a personal coach to help you quit smoking, using interactive and entertaining texts, online support, and music and videos from researchers at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. The service’s text messages help with motivation to quit, setting a quit date, finding things to do instead of smoking, handling stress, and more. To join, text “iquit” to 57682 or visit quitxt.org. “Text-message applications have scientifically proven to roughly double one’s odds of quitting smoking, so we developed Quitxt specifically for young adult Latinos to help them quit for good,” said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, study leader and director of the Institute for Health ...
How can shoppers be more influenced to buy more fruits and vegetables and stores still benefit economically? A study from researchers at three universities explains that all a store needs are a bit of creative public health focused marketing materials. The study proved that public health and economic sustainability can work together to help stores and shoppers alike through healthy marketing practices. Providing easy-to-understand placards that are placed in the shoppers' basket within the shopping cart, bilingual messages were used in shopping carts for shoppers in El Paso and Southern New Mexico to see and be encouraged to buy popular cultural fruits and vegetables. The message on the eight by eleven-inch placards was provided to encourage shoppers that most people in the ...
