Our @SaludAmerica (formerly @SaludToday) health social media handle was honored to be nominated for the Best Health channel to reach people through Tech Innovation and Social Media award from LATISM, a nonprofit group that empowers people through tech innovation and social media. Although we didn't win (congrats to our friends at the American Heart Association!), we love being part of a huge push to improve health. During the LATISM conference, our social media coordinator, Carlos Valenzuela of the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the UT Health Science Center, was honored to speak on behalf of IHPR Director Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez about how we’re using using our social media accounts and digital communications via Salud America! to raise awareness of childhood ...
In the past 10 years, the Thomas Kelly High School girls’ soccer team has been one of the winningest teams in Chicago. But they don’t even have their own field to practice or play on. The school is in Southwest Chicago’s Brighton Park Neighborhood (83% Latino), an area that is burdened by high rates of obesity and physical inactivity due to less options for safe, quality recreational facilities than other parts of Chicago. The Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BPNC) organized a campaign to renovate Kelly Park, the park adjacent to Kelly High School, to build a turf football/soccer field to make the park safer for students and families.
The Issue of No Safe Places for Physical Activity
Awareness: Patrick Brosnan, Sara Reschly, and other Brighton Park residents saw how ...
From PowerPoint presentations to outlines to thick textbooks, there are many ways students learn about the world while at school. Rarely do they get the chance to learn by actually solving real-world problems—let alone problems that directly affect their lives. Learn how Rick Treviño, a high school teacher in San Antonio, Texas, merged academics with activism and rallied his students to bring healthy, affordable fruits and vegetables into their neighborhood.
The Lack of Healthy Food in the Community
Awareness: While listening to the radio one day, San Antonio resident and high school teacher Rick Treviño got an idea. He was listening to a news story about how a group in Michigan started a Double Up Food Bucks program at local farmers’ market as a way to allow low-income ...
Praxina Guerra and her mentor Cathy Lopez are true Salud Heroes when it comes to creating an environment of school health and fun. After becoming involved with a local student ambassador program and creating a school club to encourage students to adopt healthier practices, the pair collected funds for a water bottle fountain, also called a hydration station, to be installed in the school’s cafeteria. Their team also started monthly Wellness Wednesday fitness events, available to both parents and students, as a way to increase fitness opportunities for the surrounding community.
Seeing the Issue of Obesity First-Hand
According to a 2009, Bexar County assessment of obesity by school district, 40% of children enrolled in South San Antonio Independent School District (SSAISD) were ...
Who is stepping up for child and family health? Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Children this week received a one-year, $1.3 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to develop new educational content that empowers people to drive healthy changes for children. The new funding allows Salud America! to expand its membership, which has recruited more than 10,000 parents, leaders, academics, and more. The network also will conduct research reviews and recommendations to guide anti-obesity efforts. It also will enhance its award-winning Salud America! Growing Healthy Change website with: new campaigns to engage people in reducing obesity; new multimedia Salud Heroes stories and videos of successful healthy changes; expanded ...
A regional health research program has unveiled a new website, membership opportunity, and scholarships under the direction of Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez of the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at UT Health San Antonio. Dr. Ramirez’ program is called GMaP Region 4. It is one of six regional GMaPs (or Transdisciplinary Geographic Management Programs) funded by the National Cancer Institute to bring together local networks of investigators to collaboratively identify and address health issues in regions across the country. GMaP Region 4 is enhancing local communication, recruitment, and evaluation capacity to support health research, training and outreach in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Wyoming, Utah and Nebraska. Join the program to learn ...
What happens when youth are given the opportunity to lead their classmates toward a healthier school environment? The results might just amaze you! Teens involved in the 20-20 Leadership program at JC Harmon High School, a 58% Latino school in Kansas City, Kan., learned about the county’s high obesity rates—and they decided to do something about it. They developed plans for a healthy hub at Harmon High and later came up with the win-for-all solution of developing an outdoor fitness trail on school grounds. Now the school has a half-mile fitness trail and students plan to continue enhancing fitness opportunities by installing outdoor exercise equipment along the trail.
The Lack of Physical Activity in the Neighborhood
Awareness: D’Angelo Hicks was a junior at Harmon High ...
Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the Health Science Center, the team behind SaludToday, was awarded a $1.4 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. She was among several researchers were among those awarded $7.6 million to prevent cancer this week. Ramirez will develop bilingual, relevant social and mobile messages and channels to recruit young adult smokers to sign up for a text-message-based tobacco cessation service. “Smoking is a problem among young adults in South Texas, but there are no relevant programs that utilize heavy usage of social media and texting to help them quit," Ramirez said. “If our project goes as planned, it will increase young adults’ use of tobacco cessation ...
Alma Daneshi cried as she sat in her San Diego-area oncologist’s office, traumatized by past-and-present health battles that continued to endanger her life. She had been through a brain aneurism and open-brain surgery. Then breast cancer. Then breast cancer again, followed by cervical cancer. She had lost her job managing a TGI Fridays restaurant while recovering from the aneurism and taking time off for cancer treatment. She got evicted and worried how she would care for herself and her then 12-year-old daughter. Then she learned she contracted viral meningitis during treatment. Daneshi, sitting beside her oncologist, broke down and wept. But then she got some life-changing advice. “My oncologist let me cry for a bit before she said, ‘Instead of crying, put ...
