San Antonio approved funding for the city’s first ever position dedicated to addressing and preventing childhood trauma and toxic stress. Nationwide, schools, communities, organizations and municipal agencies are working to better help the 46% of youth who have suffered an adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). For example, in Newark, New Jersey, Equal Justice USA is working with the Newark Police to teach policy and civilians how trauma impacts their daily lives, and in San Francisco, California, pediatricians are working community mental health providers in schools to address childhood trauma and reunification stress among unaccompanied immigrant children. Unfortunately, efforts like these often lack the coordinated, community-wide network needed to reach children and families ...
With a strong support network and a tenacious spirit built from escaping political turmoil in her native Venezuela and moving to the United States a decade ago, Rossmary Marquez is persistent in her efforts to improve people’s health. Marquez completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Oregon and graduated from Texas A&M with a master’s degree in public health. Her research interests include immigration, health disparities, and minority health. Before starting her master’s degree studies, Marquez worked for the CDC as an emergency risk communicator and was involved in the Ebola and Zika response. With the Venezuelan charm as a continual reminder of her roots and her path, Marquez goes the extra mile to talk with people about their experiences and how that ...
Most Americans underestimate just how concerned Latinos and other minority groups are about environmental threats, including members of those groups, according to a new study by Cornell University. Researchers surveyed 1,200 Americans about their levels of concern for the environment. They found widespread underestimation of the environmental concerns of a broad range of racial/ethnic and sociodemographic groups. This underestimation was largest for judgments of minorities’ and low-income Americans’ concerns—groups that indicate high levels of environmental concern in public opinion surveys. Also, most people associate the term "environmentalist" with whites and the well-educated. "We found a very consistent pattern that if the American public thought a group was very ...
Foreign-born immigrants in U.S. rural borderlands are plagued by poverty, stress, discrimination and lack of access to adequate healthcare, according to a new study by the University of California Riverside. These inequities jeopardize their mental and physical health. “While the research focused on Latino immigrants in Southern California, our findings tell us a lot about structural level factors and daily life events and chronic strain that create stress for minorities and immigrants in rural communities,” Ann Cheney, lead researcher and an assistant professor in the Center for Healthy Communities at UC Riverside, said in a press release.
Rural Health as a Health Disparity
The South Eastern Coachella Valley is home to predominantly low-income Mexican farmworking ...
Public health advocates talk about health in an “upstream-downstream” fashion. They want to highlight the importance of health promotion and the influence of social, economic, environmental and cultural factors on health equity for Latino and other people of color. It is a parable: A man and a woman were fishing on the river bank when they saw a woman struggling in the current. They rescued her. Soon, they saw a man struggling. They rescued him, too. This continued all afternoon. Finally, the exhausted pair decided to go upstream to find out where and why so many people were falling in. They discovered a beautiful overlook along the river’s edge without any warning signs or protective barriers. The couple went to community leaders to report the number of victims they had ...
Grant County, New Mexico (50% Latino). Luna County, New Mexico (65% Latino). Two counties. Both rural, largely Latino, with high poverty. Only 68 miles apart. Yet health is failing in one county, and prospering in the other. Why is this? What can we do?
Health Ratings: Luna vs. Grant
U.S News & World Report's new Healthiest Communities rankings use a 100-point scale to assess well-being in 3,000 U.S. counties. Metrics include economic, educational, and health outcome Grant County scored 62 of 100. Luna County scored 31 of 100. Grant ranks in the top-third of counties. They rank 20th among other rural communities with up-and-coming economies. Luna ranks in the bottom-third of counties. In health outcomes, Grant is doing better than Luna in many aspects: ...
Latinos often mistrust of doctors and scientists. In turn, they don't seek preventive healthcare or join helpful clinical trials. In fact, even though Latinos make up 17.8% of the national population and are the largest ethnic minority, Latinos comprised of less than 7.6% of clinical trial participants. The Global Institute for Hispanic Health aims to change all that.
Global Institute for Hispanic Health
The Texas A&M University System and Driscoll Children’s Hospital launched the Global Institute for Hispanic Health in 2016. It's based at Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi. It has other campuses in Brownsville, Harlingen, McAllen, Laredo, and Victoria. The Global Institute brings researchers, clinicians, and communities together to improve Latinos' ...
Two majority-Latino communities are among the four winners of the 2018 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Culture of Health Prize! San Antonio, Texas (63.6% Latino) and Cicero, Ill. (88.8% Latino) were chosen from nearly 200 applicants. Eatonville, Fla., and Klamath County, Ore., also won. These communities made strong efforts to build a culture of health is where everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. They brought neighborhood, school, and business partners together to improve health for all residents. Winning communities get a $25,000 prize and will have their inspiring stories shared by RWJF. “These inspiring places are engaging community members in decision making to give all residents the opportunity to live well, no matter where they ...
Latinos immigrants face a big lack of access to support for economic stability, education, and health. To best support Latino immigrant and all families, research shows a need to develop and support high-quality early care and education programs, home environments free of chronic stress, and poverty-reducing programs and policies. To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, let’s use #SaludTues on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018, to tweet about innovative ways to improve health equity and well-being for immigrant and all families! WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat─Let's Improve Immigrant Health!
TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET (Noon-1 p.m. CT), Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludAmerica
CO-HOSTS: The Society of Behavioral Medicine ...
