In 2004, 26 Latina breast cancer survivors from South Texas shared their stories to inspire hope, comfort, and resiliency in a bilingual booklet called Nuestras Historias. Today, many of the survivors have new, heart-warming stories to tell about how Latinas can survive cancer and thrive in the workplace, school, home, and family on the 10th anniversary of the booklet, which was produced by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez of the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio and her Redes En Acción Latino cancer research network funded by the National Cancer Institute. They vivacious survivors have been living in "technicolor," you might say. Indeed, check out a new story, "Latina Survivors Savor a Decade of Living in Technicolor," on Pages 12-15 of the UT Health Science Center's Mission ...
Alma Daneshi cried as she sat in her San Diego-area oncologist’s office, traumatized by past-and-present health battles that continued to endanger her life. She had been through a brain aneurism and open-brain surgery. Then breast cancer. Then breast cancer again, followed by cervical cancer. She had lost her job managing a TGI Fridays restaurant while recovering from the aneurism and taking time off for cancer treatment. She got evicted and worried how she would care for herself and her then 12-year-old daughter. Then she learned she contracted viral meningitis during treatment. Daneshi, sitting beside her oncologist, broke down and wept. But then she got some life-changing advice. “My oncologist let me cry for a bit before she said, ‘Instead of crying, put your anger and ...
You're invited to a webinar to explore cultural competency and population health. The webinar, set for 10 a.m. CST on Tuesday, July 15, 2014, is conducted by Redes En Acción, a national Latino cancer research network funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday. Dr. J. Emilio Carrillo, leader of Redes' northeast region and a researcher at the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center and the New York-Presbyterian Community Health Plan, will explore why cultural competency is a vital to the success of population health efforts. This patient-based, cross-cultural approach helps bridge cultural barriers in the care of individual patients by recognizing ...
Imagine that a woman's mammogram turns up an abnormality that is classified as "probably benign." Even though the chance of breast cancer is only 2-4%, a doctor typically would ask the woman to return for another screening within six months, just to be sure. If that woman was a Latina, however, delays and anxiety occur, appointments are missed and Latinas may skip subsequent screenings altogether, potentially setting the stage for confirmatory diagnoses at more advanced stages of cancer with lower survival probability. How can that be avoided? You're invited to a webinar that explores how patient navigators—trained healthcare workers who support women and help them overcome barriers related to transportation, child care, insurance coverage, language, etc.—were able to reduce those ...
You're invited to a webinar to explore best practices for projects to reduce cancer health disparities. The webinar, set for 11 a.m. CST on Tuesday, June 10, 2014, is conducted by Redes En Acción, a national Latino cancer research network funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday. The webinar will feature Dr. Eliseo Perez-Stable, leader of Redes' northwest region and chief of chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center. Perez-Stable will discuss the latest evidence-based methods for developing, implementing, and evaluating interventions on health ...
Arely Perez loves to step outside her comfort zone. In college, she studied and enjoyed kinesiology—the study of human movement—but wasn’t as familiar with how it translated to the health of the community. So, as a graduate student at UT San Antonio, she got jobs in the labs of Drs. Meizi He and Zenong Yin, where she learned all about public health and coordinated studies of local programs to improve nutrition and reduce obesity in child care centers. “I became passionate about improving people’s health, thanks to both Drs. He and Yin, who gave me great opportunities to expand my knowledge and skills,” Perez said. Today Perez is applying her passion for health as a researcher at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San ...
A wave of shock swept over Olga Cardona as she listened to her doctor. “You have breast cancer.” Cardona knew nothing about cancer. She thought it was a death sentence. She was scared. She worried more when her insurance wouldn’t cover all chemotherapy. How could this be happening to me? A patient navigator calmed her fears. The navigator, a trained community health worker, taught Cardona what cancer is, got her in a breast cancer support group, and led her to resources to cover her treatment. Cardona, years later, now is in remission—and she became a promotora to promote health at the San Ysidro Health Center in California, where she was first diagnosed. “I wanted to pay it forward because I felt so grateful to everyone that had helped me through my battle,” Cardona ...
Eating the right food can help fight cancer. But what foods are right? Are there such things as healthy—and tasty—traditional Latino dishes? Check out a new bilingual cookbook, Nuestra Cocina Saludable: Recipes from Our Community Kitchen, to guide you and your family to eat healthy and help protect against cancer and other chronic diseases. The cookbook is from the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) and the Cancer Therapy and Research Center (CTRC) at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. Download the free cookbook in English or Spanish. Inside are 46 recipes for healthy, delicious foods straight from real Latina kitchens. The cookbook originated when Latinas from across South Texas shared their mouth-watering recipes—like Aurora Rodriguez of Eagle ...
Amy Cleveland, fresh out of college and just starting a career in marketing, discovered a coarse lump in her breast while putting on some tanning oil. Only age 22, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. “It was a struggle for me because I was young and there was no one my own age I could relate to or confide in about having cancer. People always say, ‘My mom had that,’ or, ‘My grandma had that.’ But it’s tough for young people,” Cleveland said. Fortunately, Cleveland—now age 28 and free of cancer—found some “Breast Friends Forever,” thanks to a unique support group for young breast cancer survivors developed by the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio and Susan G. Komen San Antonio. The BFF ...
