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High blood pressure is a silent killer (el asesino silencioso in Spanish) that can spur heart disease and stroke among Latinos.
We addressed heart health at UT Health San Antonio’s webinar, “How to Fight El Asesino Silencioso,” at 11 a.m. Central on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in advance of Hispanic Heritage Month.
This webinar featured experts from UT Health San Antonio, the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA), and Genentech to share resources and culturally relevant tools that Latino families and healthcare workers can use to help prevent, treat, and manage high blood pressure, also called hypertension.
This is a part of a webinar series, “Let’s Address Health Equity Together.”
The series is a collaboration of the Salud America! program at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio, the Mays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio, and Genentech.
Learn about the Speakers for this Webinar on Supporting Cancer Survivors
Here are the panelists for the webinar.
Panelist presentations and a discussion were moderated by Dr. Amelie Ramirez.
Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez (moderator) is an internationally recognized researcher in Latino health promotion. She is director of Salud America! and its home base, the Institute for Health Promotion Research in the Department of Population Health Sciences at UT Health San Antonio. Ramirez has spent over 30 years directing research on human and organizational communication to reduce chronic disease and cancer health disparities affecting Latinos, including cancer risk factors, clinical trial recruitment, tobacco prevention, obesity prevention, and promotion of health equity. She also is associate director of cancer outreach and engagement at the NCI-designated Mays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio.
Dr. Carlos Roberto Jaén is professor and chair of family and community medicine at UT Health San Antonio aims to improve preventive care for individuals of all ages and building high-performance primary care offices. He has been selected to the Best Doctors in America yearly since 2002. He was elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly known as the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academies in 2013. He was also co-director of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Center for Research in Family Medicine and Primary Care. Over 20 years, the Center studied almost 500 mostly independent, community-based primary care practices and completed the evaluation of the AAFPs national demonstration project of the patient-centered medical home. He received a Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a Cancer Control Career Development Award for Primary Care Physicians from the American Cancer Society.
Erika Livingston is a Latina heart attack survivor. She is a surburban Dallas resident who works as a marketer and bookkeeper. At age 41, she experienced a heart attack on June 30, 2021. Now she is a heart health advocate, sharing her story as part of the American Heart Association and fundraising for the Dallas Heart Walk. She urges other women to listen to their body and get any abnormal situations checked out. “I would like to bring as much awareness as possible and to save one life, even if it’s one life only. If I could help one person, then I’m happy.” Read more about Erika.
Dr. Pierre R. Theodore, based in South San Francisco, serves as the Executive Director of Patient Inclusion & Health Equity at Roche-Genentech, addressing systemic availability and accessibility barriers to novel pharmaceutical technologies. A member of the teaching faculty of Stanford University, Pierre is a board-certified Cardiothoracic Surgeon and has held a range of leadership roles in industry and global public health focused on health equity.
Dr. Lucille (Lucy) Torres-Deas is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She earned her medical degree from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and completed her residency at Montefiore’s Primary Care and Social Internal Medicine Program, where she also served as Ambulatory Chief Resident. Currently, she is the Program Director and Principal Investigator of the HRSA-funded Conexiones Lingüísticas Community & Clinical Program, which aims to increase the number of medical students trained in providing culturally and linguistically appropriate holistic primary care in community settings to Spanish speaking patients. Dr. Torres-Deas is an active member of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) and the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA). A former SGIM Health Equity Chair and NHMA Leadership Fellow, she collaborates with leaders to address barriers in caring for historically marginalized groups and to advance health justice, wellbeing, and belonging. Her passion is integrating health justice into the Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Model to promote overall wellbeing
Behind the Webinar Series on Health Equity
The “Let’s Address Health Equity Together” webinar series is a collaboration of the Salud America! program at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio, the Mays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio, and Genentech.
Three webinars are planned for 2024.
Four webinars occurred in 2023, and six occurred from 2021-2022.
Salud America! is a national Latino-focused organization that creates culturally relevant and research-based stories, videos, and tools to inspire people to start and support healthy changes to policies, systems, and environments where Latino children and families can equitably live, learn, work, and play.
The Mays Cancer Center, also known as the UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson Cancer Center, has a mission to decrease the burden of cancer in San Antonio, South Texas and beyond. We bring South Texas a level of exceptional care that is comparable with the nation’s most respected programs. More patients put their trust in our program because we have a unique understanding of our community’s cancer care needs. We excel in delivering advanced therapies.
Founded more than 40 years ago as the first biotechnology company, Genentech is dedicated to the rigorous pursuit of science and the development and delivery of life-changing medicines for people facing serious diseases. Headquartered in South San Francisco, California and a proud member of the Roche Group, our community is united by a common purpose and sense of urgency to transform the future of healthcare. Learn more at gene.com.
By The Numbers
142
Percent
Expected rise in Latino cancer cases in coming years