Diana Aguire : An Èxito! Grad Who Wants to Change People’s Lives For the Better



Editor’s Note: This is the story of a graduate of the 2015 Èxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training program. Apply now for 2016. Diana Aguire Long Beach, Calif. A purse can make a fashion statement. But for this person, her “Yo Quiero Colombia” purse is a reminder of her roots and a reminder of her strong dedication to changing people’s lives for the better. She’s got a great start thanks to her work on an obesity prevention project and coordinating a promotora health education program. Diana enjoys doing research, working with the community, and providing mentorship to other Latino students seeking higher education. Diana is a first generation college graduate who received her bachelor's degree in Health Science from California State and is now enrolled ...

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Apply Now for the 2016 Éxito! Latino Cancer Training Program and Internships



Apply now for the 2016 Éxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training program and optional $3,250 internships. Éxito!, a program of the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, will select 25 master’s-level students and health professionals from across the nation to attend a five-day summer institute June 6-10, 2016, in San Antonio, offering research information, tools, tips, role models and motivation to encourage participants to pursue a doctoral degree and a career studying how cancer affects Latinos differently. Applicants for the 2016 Éxito! program can also apply for one of 10 internships. Master’s-degree students or master’s-trained health professionals are encouraged to apply for the training program and ...

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How to Prevent Cervical Cancer among Latinos


hpv psa redes

A vaccine can't prevent disease unless people use it. In Texas, only 39% of girls and 15% of boys ages 13-17 complete the three-dose HPV vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV), a common sexually transmitted infection that can cause cervical cancer and other problems. Dr. Deborah Parra-Medina has a plan to change that. Parra-Medina, a Latino health researcher at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, received a new $1.2 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas to develop an professional education and community outreach program to increase awareness and uptake of the HPV vaccine among young boys and girls in South Texas. She and her team will train local health care providers to deliver accurate ...

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How to Turn Latino Students into Doctors and Cancer Researchers



It motivated Andrew Jimenez to pursue a PhD “when it previously wasn’t a thought.” It opened Jasmin Berrios’ eyes to new cancer research fields to study. “It” is the Éxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training program at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. Éxito! (English: Success!) recently received a $1.4 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to continue to offer its annual five-day summer institute, internships, and other activities from 2015-2020 to empower master’s-level students and health professionals—like Jimenez and Berrios—to pursue a doctoral degree and cancer research careers. Of 101 Éxito! graduates since 2010, more than 30 percent have applied to doctoral ...

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Vote: Who’s the Best of the Best in Social Media for Latino Health



Spreading the word about how to build a culture of health for Latinos is a dire need. That's why we at SaludToday are excited to be nominated as Best Health Advocate reaching Latino(a)s through Tech Innovation and Social Media by LATISM (Latinos in Social Media), a nonprofit group that aims to empower Latinos through tech innovation and social media, and Toyota. SaludToday is a national Latino health campaign and the social media handle for Dr. Amelie Ramirez's Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, including its national projects on Latino childhood obesity (Salud America!) and cancer prevention (Redes). SaludToday curates stories about peer models who’ve made healthy behavior changes, recent health news, useful resources, and ...

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Turn Your Phone into a Personal Coach to Help You Quit Smoking!


female not smoking

Smoking is a tough opponent to beat. Quitxt is a new free service that turns your mobile phone into a personal coach to help you quit smoking, using interactive and entertaining text messages, online support, hip-hop music, and videos designed for South Texas young adults by researchers at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. The service’s text messages help with motivation to quit, setting a quit date, finding things to do instead of smoking, handling stress, using nicotine replacement if needed, and more. To join, text “iquit” to 57682. “Text-message applications have scientifically proven to roughly double one’s odds of quitting smoking, so we developed Quitxt specifically for young adult Latinos to capitalize on their heavy usage of texting to help them ...

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A Pop Quiz that Can Save Your Adolescent Child’s Life



What’s the most common sexually transmitted infection? What can cause genital warts or cervical, penis, and anus cancer? What can be prevented with a simple vaccine? Answer: HPV (the human papillomavirus). That’s why a new program is educating people about HPV and helping them make and remember HPV vaccination appointments for girls and boys ages 11-17 in South Texas. The program, called Entre Familia, uses promotoras—trained community health workers—to deliver education and services, led by researchers at the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio in partnership with Nuestra Clínica del Valle in South Texas and the Colonias Program at Texas A&M University. “Entre Familia raises awareness about the ...

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Latino Health in Focus: Changing Communities and Lifestyles



Find the latest advances in Latino health—from a health-promoting video series to removing "taco dogs" from schools—in the IHPR Noticias E-newsletter. IHPR Noticias has lots of info on the latest local and national health disparities-related news, resources and events: Story: New TV Series by Salud America! and KSAT-TV (Pg. 1) Study: Program Helps Hispanic Kids Adopt Healthier Lifestyle (Pg. 3) Story: Inaugural Event Explores Women’s Cancer Survivorship (Pg. 4) Story: Social Media Uproar Causes District to Remove ‘Taco Dog’ from School Menus (Pg. 6) Campaign: 27,000+ People Tell Taco Bell: Quit Pushing Sugary Drinks (Pg. 8) Resources: 5 Ways to Set the Stage for Success by Latino Youth (Pg. 9) IHPR Noticias is a quarterly publication from the Institute for ...

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San Antonio: Free Event on 6/13/15 to Explore Women’s Cancer, Healing Foods, and More



Cancer survivors and healthcare providers are invited to explore diet, spirituality, and more at the inaugural Women’s Survivorship Summit from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 13, 2015, at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, with support from the San Antonio Breast Cancer Collaborative, a coalition that includes the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. Register here for the summit, which will feature free food, speakers, and cancer resources. Dr. Virginia G. Kaklamani, leader of the breast cancer program at the Cancer Therapy and Research Center at the UT Health Science Center, will talk about the clinical and psychological challenges of being a cancer survivor and how to move ahead. Other experts will cover healing foods ...

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