May is National Physical Activity month. It's also National Mental Health Month! Unfortunately, not all kids and families have access to safe places to play or services to promote healthy minds. While physical activity has numerous health benefits we often forget how important it is for promoting overall mental health and wellbeing. Some studies even show that having access to green space and physical activity programming can reduce stress levels, promote mental health and increase community resilience. Schools, workplaces, and communities all over can and should take action by promoting movement throughout the day this month and every day. On May 22, 2018 let’s use #SaludTues to chat about ways to boost physical activity and promote healthy minds in Latino ...
UPDATE: After the U.S. House failed to pass the Farm Bill on May 18, 2018, reports surfaced June 20, 2018, that the U.S. House will "take a second look at their version of the Farm Bill, which again would jeopardize SNAP. A proposal to cut $20 billion over the next 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program as part of the proposed Farm Bill would dramatically impact Latino health, according to various reports. Latinos comprise more than 20% of participants in SNAP, commonly known as food stamps. SNAP benefits Latinos in a variety of ways, from accessing healthy food to lifting them out of poverty. Cuts to SNAP in the proposed Farm Bill, set to expire in September 2018, could jeopardize that aid by cutting support and adding barriers to ...
You don’t need to hold political office to make a healthy change in your community. Parents and residents play a big role in helping leaders make change by getting involved in neighborhood associations and local committees, boards, and commissions. These groups rely on your input to shape plans and policies that impact health in your area. Contributing to healthy local change is important because where you live─down to your ZIP code─can predict your and your family’s education, income, and physical and mental health. So how can you get involved? Ways to Get Involved First, check out our Health Equity Report Card to see what healthy change is needed in your town! Get Your Report Card! Now that you know, here are some ways you can help shape local policies, ...
Latinos who are the most optimistic also are more likely to have healthy hearts, according to a new study. Rosalba Hernandez of the University of Illinois studied 4,900 Latinos living in the United States. She and her team found that, for each percentage point increase in Latinos' optimism, there was a better heart health score, too. Meanwhile, few of the less optimistic Latinos met the criteria for ideal heart health. “Each unit increase in a Latino adult’s level of optimism was associated with 3% higher odds of meeting the criteria for ideal cardiovascular health across four or more metrics,” said Hernandez, a social work professor, in a news release. “The correlation between optimism and cardiovascular health was consistent across heritage groups, regardless of age, ...
Food stamp recipients who buy fruits and veggies can get up to $40 more a month to buy extra avocados, squash, and other fresh produce, thanks to a new program to help Latino and other low-income families eat healthier, Kaiser Health News reports. This "Más Fresco" ("More Fresh") program started in 2017. It's for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties in California. Most of the program's 1,153 participants are Latino. "For every dollar worth of food stamps enrollees spend on fresh produce in a given month, they receive a one-to-one match, up to $10, $20 or $40, which they can spend only on more fruits and vegetables," according to Kaiser Health News.
Latinos Need Healthy Food Options
Latino families lack ...
The places we are born, grow, live, work, and age were not created equitably for all. Women of color tend to live in places with less access to opportunity—safe places to walk and play, healthy food, quality education, public transportation, employment opportunities, and preventive health care. This hinders educational attainment, income, and physical and mental health. Fortunately, women are increasingly standing up to the historical social, environmental, and political issues that spur poor health. To celebrate Women’s History Month, let's use #SaludTues on March 13, 2018, to tweet about awesome women who have and continue to build a culture of health for Latino and all families in the places they live. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: "Women in Health, the Environment, ...
Dr. Janet Houser wants her Regis University in Denver to "make a difference in the world" for better health. So they've started in their own backyard. Houser, the university's provost, is uniting community groups and developers to "cultivate health" in the neighborhood around the university—creating affordable housing and surrounding it with a health clinic, health education, and access to active spaces and healthy food. In just a few years, they want to give local families a place where they can equitably live, learn, work, and play. Is such a big transformation really possible?
A Rising Latino Population Denver is one of the largest, fastest-growing cities in the country. It also has a rising Latino population, from 23% in 1990 to 31% in 2014. This changing ...
More Latinos walk and bike instead of drive cars than non-Latinos, which could be the key to address climate change and health equity, according to a recent English and Spanish survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Transportation design, however, doesn't always make it easy to walk and bike safely. Salud America! continues its three-part series exploring the issue of climate change for Latinos, today tackling whether leaders get more people out of cars and into active transportation, boosting health and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Part 1 of the series tackled what climate change is, why Latinos are worried, and whether they should be. Part 2 addressed what kinds of policies Latinos would support to address climate change.
The Rise of Latinos Walking ...
What’s better than waking up to an encouraging text message? Iris Guzman, thanks in part to supportive texts each morning from her father and her experiences as a first-generation Mexican-American, has developed a similar caring nature for the health and welfare of Latinos. Guzman, who is from Nayarit, Mexico, is currently a second-year master’s-degree student in public health at UCLA’s Department of Community Health Sciences. She has a consistent desire to research the social, cultural, and environmental determinants of health. Particularly, she wants to study these determinants in order to reduce and eliminate health inequities in the Latino population. To further her training and education, Guzman applied for the Éxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training ...
