For National Influenza Vaccination Week Dec. 4-10, 2011, the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) is inviting Hispanics ages 6 months and older to get vaccinated against the influenza. The first and most important step to protect against flu is to get vaccinated, according to the CDC's Spanish-language flu website. The vaccine reduces one's risk of illness, hospitalization, or even death and can prevent the spread of the virus to loved ones. There is good news: More Hispanic children, 43 percent, have been vaccinated this year than black children at 36 percent or white children at 34 percent, UPI reports. Go to flu.gov in English or Spanish to learn ...
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Effective Health Care Program will host a live chat on its Spanish-language Facebook page with Scientific Review Officer Dr. Ileana Ponce-Gonzalez at 2 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011. This Facebook live chat is part of AHRQ’s recently launched Toma las riendas campaign, a nationwide effort to encourage Hispanics to take control of their health and explore treatment options. The campaign promotes a wide variety of resources produced by the Effective Health Care Program, such as consumer-friendly publications that summarize treatment options for common health conditions and help Hispanics work with their health care teams to select the best possible treatment option. Access to reliable information is essential when ...
Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series that will highlight the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s work in Latino communities across the country. When his only child Emilio died of cancer shortly before his sixth birthday, Richard Nares found his world was shattered. As he and his wife tried to put their lives back together, Nares realized his priorities had changed. “All I wanted to do was help other families who were going through what we went through,” said Nares, who was an artist and picture framer. Putting his family’s tragedy and hard-earned knowledge to use, Nares and his wife Diane established the Emilio Nares Foundation to transport underprivileged families whose children are battling cancer to their medical visits at Rady Children’s Hospital ...
The Utah Department of Health recently released several videos, "For Me, For Us," to offer reliable health care information to racial/ethnic minorities, the Daily Herald reports. Each video tackles healthy eating, access to health care and healthy births, and other health challenges facing minorities in Utah. One of the videos targets Latinos. Watch in English or Spanish or ...
Increasing rates of obesity and diabetes may be contributing to a steep rise in liver cancer, or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), among Latinos in the U.S., particularly in Texas. Overall U.S. HCC rates grew from 1.7 cases to 5 cases per 100,000 from 1980 to 2005, and reached 7.5 cases per 100,000 among Latinos, according to data presented at a recent American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) conference by Dr. Amelie Ramirez, director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday. Dr. Ramirez and her colleagues also found that Latinos accounted for about 33% of HCC cases in Texas and 75% of cases in South Texas, while also documenting corresponding increases in the prevalence of obesity ...
