1 in 9 young people are at risk for youth disconnection—someone ages 16-24 years who is neither working or in school. The coronavirus is expected to widen this gap, especially for Latinos and communities of color. Without immediate action, the number of disconnected youth could grow to 1 in 4 young people, or 6 million youth. A recent report, A Decade Undone: Youth Disconnection in the Age of Coronavirus, highlights progress made over the last 10 years in connecting youth to opportunity. It also provides new details on findings at the state, county and local PUMAs (public use and microdata areas) level on youth disconnection. On Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020, let’s use #SaludTues to chat about ways to help Latino youth and their families stay connected amid the coronavirus ...
Recent data goes to proves alarming facts health experts and racial justice advocates warned of since the spread of COVID-19: Minority groups are experiencing the pandemic’s worst outcomes. Latinos, Blacks, and other communities of color are three times more likely to contract coronavirus than white Americans, according to a new report from the New York Times—obtained through a lawsuit against the centers of disease control. Worse, members of those groups are twice as likely to die. “Systemic racism doesn’t just evidence itself in the criminal justice system,” Quinton Lucas, the third Black mayor of Kansas City, told the Times. “It’s something that we’re seeing taking lives in not just urban America, but rural America, and all types of parts where, frankly, people ...
Walking and biking are critical transportation options for physical and mental health. More importantly, they are essential to get to destinations, particularly Latinos during the coronavirus pandemic — including those who are simultaneously less likely to work from home than their white peers and more likely to be impacted by job loss. When the pandemic began, the portion of auto loan accounts in financial hardship jumped from 0.64% in March to 3.54% in April, according to TransUnion. Financial hardship status is defined by factors incliuding: A deferred payment or frozen past-due payment because a person is unable to keep up with payments due to a change in financial circumstances, such as loss of a job
Significant cut in hours or pay
Medical illness To recover and ...
The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is surging across the U.S., and the American death toll has eclipsed 130,000. Worse, this crisis is widening the gap experienced by households without internet access — a long-festering problem that has made unequal educational opportunities even more unbalanced, said Jordana Barton, a senior advisor in community development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "The COVID-19 pandemic has brought national attention to the digital divide—the gap experienced by households without internet access," Barton wrote. "Directives for social distancing and stay-at-home orders have made access to broadband an urgent necessity for families as they struggle to stay connected with schooling, jobs, health care, government assistance, and more."
The Digital ...
Researchers are finding that population density is not associated with higher death rates from COVID-19. Unfortunately, some people still blame compact housing and transit for pandemic spikes, and use that misinformation to promote sprawling residential development and disinvestment in transit in the name of health. These are the same poor practices that have segregated neighborhoods and contributed to drastic disparities in health and wealth for a century. As city leaders respond to concerns about COVID transmission and develop economic recovery plans, they must challenge the discriminatory status quo, consider transportation expenses, and shift toward equitable, compact (not overcrowded) housing development. “Restoring urban transit networks to full force, expanding their ...
COVID-19 can affect anyone. But the coronavirus pandemic is impacting Latinos and other communities of color more severely. This is why Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of Salud America! at UT Health San Antonio, is joining a webinar to discuss issues and solutions to COVID-19 health disparities. The webinar, "Why Are We Dying? Race, Ethnicity and Health Justice in the COVID-19 Pandemic," is set for 11 a.m. CST Monday, June 29, 2020. The event is sponsored by PanPals.com, a program at the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at UT Health San Antonio. Register for the webinar. The webinar features: Amelie Ramirez, DrPH, Professor and Chair, Department of Population Health Sciences and Director, Institute for Health Promotion Research, UT Health San Antonio. Dr. Ramirez ...
As shelter-in-place orders swept the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare providers’ implementation of telehealth expanded rapidly. In telehealth sessions, those seeking routine check-ups, mental health care, or other services can meet with their provider virtually using computers or other smart devices. This novel way of treating patients aims to look for ways to deliver care to patients in their homes to limit the transmission of the novel coronavirus. "The current public health emergency and the resulting accelerated growth potential in telehealth services is an opportunity for providers to enhance their care practices and for insurers and policymakers to recognize the value of telemedicine," a recent report from UCLA's Center for the Study of Latino health and ...
U.S. Latinos are bearing an extraordinary burden when it comes to cases, deaths, other impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Worse, this continues a trend of this group's continual hardship of experiencing health and social inequities. Many reports suggest that this trend of Latinos and other people of color being disproportionately affected is worsening already harsh historical inequities. One of those inequities is drug use. Moreover, COVID-19 and opioid addiction can impact and worsen each other, mainly for people of color. "As people across the U.S. and the rest of the world contend with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the research community should be alert to the possibility that it could hit some populations with substance use disorders (SUDs) particularly hard," Dr. Nora ...
In a move that shows how social movements can address local health, Black Lives Matter advocates are helping push for a grocery store in a food desert in Oklahoma City (14.6% Black, 19.2% Latino). The advocates brought a demand for a store to city leaders. They met with Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, Homeland grocery store President and CEO Marc Jones, and economic developers to discuss plans for building the 30,000-square-foot store to a local food desert on the Northeast side of the city, according to Patrina Adger of KOCO News. The area's only grocery store closed down about a year ago. This left neighbors with little access to fresh fruits and vegetables. "Obviously it's just this huge unmet need [for healthy food options] for a number of years," Jones of Homeland told ...
