More than three of four Latinos worry about global warming and climate change, a higher worry rate than their non-Latinos peers, according to a recent English and Spanish survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Why are Latinos so worried? What policies can help? How willing are Latinos to take action, and how will that impact health equity and safer streets? Salud America! is excited to launch a three-part series exploring the issue of climate change for Latinos. Today we will tackle what climate change is, why Latinos are worried, and whether they should be. Part 2 will address what kinds of policies Latinos would support to address climate change. Part 3 will focus on a potential solution for both climate change and health equity.
What is Climate ...
"Know Your Role." "Know Your Rights." These are the two key phrases being taught to Oregon Latino immigrants in new free workshops, which offer bilingual help on interacting with police and understanding one’s rights whether they are documented or undocumented. The workshops, led by the Rural Organizing Project in Oregon (11% Latino), help Latinos integrate in the community and build resiliency. "Oregon has become our home, and as such, we need to learn how to protect it, starting with ourselves and our own families," according to a blog post by Jessica Campbell of the organization. "Let’s not allow fear to break us! We are resilient people that made the heartbreaking choice of leaving our home countries behind, searching for opportunities to rebuild ourselves and our ...
Latinos are less likely than their peers to join potentially life-saving clinical trials. They often fear being treated like a guinea pig, are scared of being deported, and don’t trust doctors. Yuritzy Gonzalez Peña wants to change that. Peña wants to bust the myths about clinical trials among Latinos, and also boost community health by promoting beneficial policies and improved health systems. Peña, a native of Salem, Ore., earned her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in public health from Oregon State University. Because she understands the importance of evidence-based, practical, and multidisciplinary research, she is involved in many research projects. Her most recent projects have dealt with teen pregnancy in rural communities, chronic risk factors in migrant ...
"I hear demons telling me to be bad." "I need my medicine to calm down." "Mom has a new boyfriend, but that’s okay cause dad has a new girlfriend." Fred Cardenas has heard these statements from kids ages 6 and younger who suffer mental health issues. Cardenas, who has spent 30 years in early childhood services in San Antonio (68% Latino), said overwhelmed parents and stressed teachers struggle to deal with these kids. Health workers too often look for a psychiatric diagnosis to medicate. He wanted to help parents, teachers, and health workers look more at the context and relationships experienced by the kids. So Cardenas helped build a program—Early Childhood Well Being (ECWB) at Family Service Association of San Antonio. ECWB intervenes early for kids ages 0-8 ...
The San Antonio City Council voted 9-2 today to approve a measure to raise the tobacco sale age from 18 to 21 within the city limits, according to FOX29-TV. San Antonio (68% Latino) now is the first city in Texas to have raised to the minimum age. The city also joins five states and over 280 communities in 13 states. Health experts lauded the measure. Tobacco use claims 480,000 lives each year, including 28,000 in Texas, and causes $8.8 billion in direct health care expenses. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among Latino men and the second-leading cause among Latinas. “UT Health San Antonio seeks to make lives better through improved health for all,” said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San ...
An initiative by the First Lady of Wisconsin to prevent and reduce childhood trauma has grown to become a dynamic collaboration, putting Wisconsin in the lead to be the first trauma-informed state. Trauma during childhood negatively affects development and physical and mental health into adolescence and adulthood. Traumatic events include: physical and emotional neglect; physical, emotional and sexual abuse; parental divorce, separation, incarceration, and substance abuse; and poverty. These are also called adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and were first studied in the 1990s. The more ACEs a child experiences, the higher their risk of chronic disease, mental illness, substance abuse, violence, teen pregnancy, incarceration, and dropping out of high school. Since the ...
Healthy food activists Erick Kornacki and Joseph Teipel have a phrase to call the 81% Latino neighborhood of Westwood in Denver. A "food desert." For decades, Westwood residents have struggled to access healthy food. There are no nearby grocery stores or farmers markets. People lack transportation to find healthy options elsewhere to bring back. Kornacki, Teipel, and Westwood neighbors decided to take matters into their own hands. They began to build backyard vegetable gardens. They talked about how to create a food cooperative. They wanted to build the first community-owned and -run grocer as an oasis in this food desert.
Food Deserts Isolate Latinos from Healthy Food
In 2007, Kornacki and Teipel co-founded Re:Vision, a nonprofit that works on social justice and food ...
The U.S. Latino population has grown 243% since 1980. But the number of Latino doctors dropped 22%, a study found. That's why we need programs like Roots to Wings. The innovative Roots to Wings program teams up Latino and Native American middle- and high-schoolers in Washington schools with medical students at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences. The teams then "co-mentor" each other. How? The kids teach the medical students about their Mexican-American or Yakama Nation heritage. The medical students teach the kids about medicine and pursuing higher education. “Roots to Wings is actually an educational pathway for underrepresented youth to enter the health sciences,” Dr. Mirna Ramos-Diaz, who leads the program, recently told the Yakima Herald. ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latino Early Childhood Development: A Research Review »
Latino Kids Have Limited Access to Healthy Foods
Pediatric obesity is an important public health issue. Targeted efforts to curb child obesity rates are necessary, especially among Latino children, as this sub-group is more likely to become overweight before entering elementary school than children of other ethnic groups.11 Obesity in Latino children increases health risk factors and can also impact school performance.11,54 A main contributor of overweight and obesity in Latino children may be their limited access to healthy food. See the full Salud America! research review on Latino children and healthy food access.10 Some recent study results appear mixed on this ...
