Alfred Lee has heard just about every COVID-19 vaccine myth out there. He’s seen YouTube videos about how “dangerous” the vaccine is, how it’ll track people, how it’ll make people’s skin fall off. His friends and neighbors believed these myths and kept telling Lee not to get vaccinated. But Lee was tired of COVID-19 safety precautions interfering with his life. He wanted to go fishing with his family. He decided to get vaccinated, and he’s glad he did. “Oh yeah, I feel much safer now, are you kidding?” Lee said. Find COVID-19 vaccine locations near you with Salud.to/findvaccine!
A Military Brat from Blanco County
Although Lee would describe himself a military brat, he’s a Texan through and through. He lives and works in Blanco County. Throughout ...
Dr. Dorothy Long Parma hasn’t had the easiest career path. She’s struggled with depression throughout her time in medical school, residency, and her current work as an assistant professor at the Institute of Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at UT Health San Antonio. Although her depression made it very difficult at times, Long Parma successfully completed her degree and is now an expert health disparities researcher focusing on risk factors for gastric cancer. “I really like working at IHPR. I've worked here as a student, and then as faculty and it's been a great supportive environment. Amelie [Ramirez, the director of IHPR] has always been very understanding about me working at the level that I can work,” Long Parma said.
From the Philippines to Texas for ...
For Maria Hernandez, fighting for health equity hits close to home. When her dad was in the hospital fighting cancer, Hernandez had a realization. “He’s being wheeled into the surgical unit, and he's with me and my mom and my two brothers, and we're all speaking Spanish, wishing him well. And all of a sudden, he puts up his hand and says, ‘Stop, don't speak Spanish, they're going to think I'm stupid, and they're not going to help me.’ And that just took my breath away,” Hernandez said. It made her realize that healthcare organizations must do more to address implicit bias. “Here I was, working on diversity and inclusion issues in major corporations. And I thought, what is healthcare doing about this? And so I started looking into this,” Hernandez ...
Luz Garcini wants to help Latinos heal from the loss of a loved one. “One of the biggest needs that we see in the community right now is that there has been a lot of loss and grief, particularly associated to the loss of loved ones over the current [COVID-19] pandemic, that has not been addressed,” Garcini said. Garcini is a clinical psychologist and epidemiologist. She works as an assistant professor at the Center for Research to Advance Community Health (ReACH) at UT Health San Antonio. To further the study of loss and grief among Latino immigrants, Garcini and her team at ReACH created a monthly webinar series, “Paths: Building Strength in the Face of Loss,” to help Latinos understand grief and build coping skills and strength. She hopes the series will help Latinos ...
Like many of us, Norma Cavazos has had her life turned upside down by COVID-19. Many of her family members have gotten sick. Some even died. She’s had to stay at home for over a year now, doing curbside grocery shopping, spending time away from her family. Cavazos can’t wait for the pandemic to end. But when the COVID-19 vaccine first came out, Cavazos didn’t want to get it. She read a few fake news articles that claimed the vaccine would make people with underlying health conditions very sick. Ultimately, after doing more research and talking to her doctors, Cavazos decided to get the vaccine. She’s relieved she did. “It is a load of bricks off my shoulders. I'm more happy. I’m able to hug people,” Cavazos said. Find COVID-19 vaccine locations near you ...
Everyone deserves an equal chance to get a COVID-19 vaccine. But some communities, like Latinos, don’t have as much access or information about the vaccine or are hesitant to get vaccinated. The Nevada Vaccine Equity Collaborative (NVEC) is working to change that. Co-led by Immunize Nevada and the Nevada Minority Health and Equity Coalition, the NVEC is working to promote equitable distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine in Nevada, particularly among vulnerable communities. “I think as we were kind of creating a response, we knew that we weren't just responding to the actual physical effects of COVID. But just misinformation as well, looking at what, you know, why people weren't getting vaccinated and kind of looking at some of those off the wall reasons and thinking, how are ...
Helen Córdova sabe lo peligroso que es el COVID-19. Ella ha estado trabajando en la primera línea como enfermera de la UCI durante toda la pandemia. “COVID causó definitivamente un gran impacto en la comunidad de atención médica. Había tanta incertidumbre y cosas que no sabíamos sobre el virus”, dijo Córdova. Cuando la vacuna fue autorizada por primera vez por la FDA para uso de emergencia en diciembre de 2020, Córdova fue elegida para ser una de las primeras personas en recibir la vacuna. Pero estaba muy nerviosa y al comienzo no quería vacunarse. “Inicialmente, estaba segura de que no iba a recibir la vacuna. Pensé: 'Fue apresurado, no le tengo confianza'”, dijo Córdova. Pero después de consultar con sus colegas y leer la investigación de los ...
Helen Cordova knows how dangerous COVID-19 is. She’s been working on the frontline as an ICU nurse throughout the entire pandemic. “COVID was definitely a big shock for the healthcare community. There was just so much uncertainty and things we didn't know about it,” Cordova said. When the vaccine was first authorized for emergency use by the FDA in December 2020, Cordova was chosen to be one of the first recipients of the vaccine. But she was very nervous and didn’t originally want to get it. “Initially, I was absolutely not going to get the vaccine. I thought, ‘It was rushed, I won't trust it,’” Cordova said. But after consulting with her colleagues and reading the research from the clinical trials, Cordova knew it was safe and the right ...
Growing up in a working-class, union family, Dominic Aliano saw firsthand how local governance could help people in his hometown. Aliano now serves as the Vice Mayor of that city, Concord, Calif (29.9% Latino). He has led numerous initiatives to improve life in Concord ─ including the city’s smoke-free multifamily housing ordinance, which prohibits smoking inside units of all apartments. Smoke-free multifamily housing helps protect families who face toxic secondhand smoke exposure and other systemic inequities where they live, according to Aliano. “This legislation and ones like it are really important for people, especially those in the communities that I represent, who are mostly renters in multi-family housing complexes,” he said. “Sometimes landlords take ...
