Salud America! Targets Latino Child Obesity During Nat’l Childhood Obesity Awareness Month
Sep 2nd
Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children, which is led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, is observing National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month and encouraging people to join us and get involved.
Earlier this year, a resolution was unanimously passed in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate designating September as National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, to bring attention to this growing epidemic.
Mexican-American children are more likely to be obese or overweight (38%) than children overall (31.9%), putting them at greater risk for chronic disease and shorter lifespans.
In repsonse, Salud America! formed in 2008 to increase the number of researchers, policy-makers and community leaders engaged in research to prevent obesity among Latino children. We have:
- Developed a network of more than 1,600 people interested in preventing Latino childhood obesity.
- Developed first National Latino Child Obesity Research Agenda.
- Funded, through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 20 pilot research projects working in and with Latino communities on a variety of nutrition, physical activity and policy issues.
- Developed the SaludToday Web site and blog to spread positive Latino health stories and messages.
And we’ve also produced an award-winning dramatic video that uses shocking statistics and actual child voices to document the multi-faceted epidemic of Latino childhood obesity, “Did You Know?/¿Sabía Usted?”
Workshop: The Latest in Metastatic Breast Cancer Care & Treatment
Sep 1st
CancerCare, in partnership with Redes En Acción, which is led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, will offer a free Connect Education Workshop, Update on Metastatic Breast Cancer: What’s New?, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. EST on Oct. 14, 2010.
In the tele-workshop, expert speakers will discuss updates on metastatic breast cancer, the current standard of care and new treatment approaches, how clinical research improves care, diagnostic testing and technologies, communicating with your health care team, and more.
Other upcoming CancerCare workshops include: The Importance of Clinical Trials, Sept. 24; The Importance of Taking Your Pills on Schedule, Oct. 5; Update on the Treatment of Liver Cancer, Nov. 9.
The breast cancer workshop is free and no phone charges apply.
To register, visit the CancerCare Web site.
Smoking Remains a Serious Problem in Latino Community
Aug 31st
Latinos generally have lower rates of smoking than other racial/ethnic groups with the exception of Asian Americans. However, smoking remains a continuing and serious problem in the Latino community.
Get all the key facts on Latino smoking from the American Lung Association.
And if you’re a Latino who is thinking about quitting smoking, be sure to check out the Buena Vida health magazine in English or Spanish that tells the stories of five Latinos and how they kicked the habit and what it meant for their lives. The Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind Salud Today, produced the magazine and other tobacco prevention materials.
NCLR Launches 12-Part Series to Address Latino Nutrition
Aug 31st
The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., has introduced the third edition of its “Profiles of Latino Health” series, titled Profiles of Latino Health: A Closer Look at Child Nutrition.
The 12-part weekly series examines critical factors affecting Latino children’s nutrition, including trends in hunger and obesity, as well as family access to healthy foods and other resources that play important roles in children’s nutritional outcomes.
“Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that obesity rates—already alarmingly high—have increased yet again. The nation is also experiencing unprecedented rates of hunger, particularly in the wake of an economic crisis that has devastated many American families,” said Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO. “America’s children are suffering as a result. As U.S. leaders combat the crises of childhood hunger and obesity, NCLR hopes to inform the national discussion by providing insight into trends within the Latino community.”
Hispanic children currently make up more than one in five children in the U.S. and are expected to represent nearly one in three children by 2030. They are also the hungriest in America—composing almost 40% of the one million children living in hunger. Ironically, they have one of the highest risks of obesity; researchers estimate that nearly two-fifths (38.5%) of Latino children ages two to 19 were overweight or obese in 2008.
Issue 1 of the new series deals with Latino child hunger and family food insecurity.
For more details on NCLR’s series, go here.
‘Insider’ Training Program to Increase Number of Latino Researchers Studying Latino Cancer
Aug 30th
Question: Who might have insider information about Latinos that would pave the way for novel studies of cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic issues to prevent Latinos from suffering worse cancer outcomes?
Answer: A cancer researcher who also is a Latino.
To that end, the new Latino Training Program for Cancer Control Research (LTPCCR), led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio thanks to a new five-year, $1.57-million grant from the National Cancer Institute, aims to motivate Latinos to get their doctoral degree and become “insider researchers” in the field of cancer control among Latinos.
Right now, few Latinos pursue doctoral degrees or cancer research careers, causing a gap in the amount of researchers examining Latino cancer issues.
The LTPCCR will develop and organize a summer training institute, paid research internships, doctoral application support and mentoring to encourage Latino master’s-level students and professionals—from Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada—to complete doctoral programs and start careers in cancer control research.
“We hope that training new Latino researchers will increase the proportion of Latinos in cancer control research, which in turn will increase the amount of work being done to reduce cancer health inequalities that affect the Latino population,” said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, director of the IHPR, the team behind SaludToday.
Read more about the new program here.
Just the Facts: Obesity Among Latino Youths
Aug 25th
Leadership for Healthy Communities, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has updated its Overweight and Obesity Among Latino Youths fact sheets, which highlights the prevalence, consequences and causes of overweight and obesity among Latino youths, in both English and Spanish.
While childhood obesity has increased significantly throughout the general population, children from minority communities have been disproportionately affected.
Sharply higher rates of overweight and obesity have occurred among Latino, African-American and Native American children and adolescents.
We at SaludToday hope you read the fact sheet and get motivated to do something about it.
Latinos, Get More Obesity News in Spanish from RWJF
Aug 20th
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has launched its Multicultural Newsroom, a dynamic online resource that aims to provide extensive health-related information for anyone involved in improving the health and health care of African-Americans and Latinos in the U.S.
Through a multicultural lens and bilingual messaging, the site presents information, images and videos on the RWJF work under way in African-American and Latino communities across the country, such as:
- Profiles of key leaders, programs and projects that RWJF supports in these communities
- RWJF news releases, fact sheets and research findings that are of particular relevance to African-Americans and Latinos.
- Speeches, commentary and discussion by RWJF leaders and experts on issues such as disparities in health care, reversing the childhood obesity epidemic and the impact of social factors on health.
We encourage you to give www.rwjf.org/multicultural a look and listen. It’s an important resource for anyone involved in improving the health and health care of African-Americans and Latinos in the U.S.
Obesity Rate Stabilizes Among Latino Youth, Rises or Drops for Others
Aug 16th
Obesity rates among Latino youth leveled off at 26 percent from 2001-2008, according to a new study released today in Pediatrics that reveals the very mixed trends in racial disparities that underlie a plateau in childhood obesity rates nationally.
The study, which examined data from more than 8 million California students (about half Latinos), is the first to find significant differences in racial and ethnic trends over time for obesity prevalence among youth.
From 2001 to 2008 in California, obesity rates increased steadily among Black and American Indian girls to 22 percent and 23 percent, resectively, compared with fluctuating rates for Black and American Indian boys. And among White and Asian children, rates fell starting in 2005 to 12 percent and 13 percent, respectively. The overall obesity rate for the groups was 20 percent.
The study also found the greatest racial disparities among California’s most obese children. American Indian and Black girls were more than three times as likely as White girls to be in the highest obesity percentile.
“The stabilization of obesity among Latinos is encouraging, but Latino youth still have the highest rates of overweight and obesity in the state,” said lead author Kristine Madsen, M.D., MPH, of the University of California, San Francisco. “As our country becomes increasingly diverse, it’s critical that we act quickly to address these disparities.”
Researchers analyzed data from more than 8 million fifth-, seventh- and ninth-grade students, collected between 2001 and 2008 as part of California’s mandatory school-based body mass index (BMI) screening program. About one in eight U.S. children lives in California, and the study’s authors suggest these results show population-level trends that are applicable to other states.
The study, “Disparities in Peaks, Plateaus, and Declines in Prevalence of High BMI Among Adolescents,” was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its national program, Active Living Research.
See Who’s Stepping Up Vs. Latino Child Obesity
Aug 16th
How does Cookie Monster help Latino pre-schoolers eat right, exercise? How does Marathon Kids get children to “run” from obesity? How does Dharma Cortes teach low-income Latinos to shop, eat healthier?
Find the answers and more in the latest Salud America! E-newsletter.
Also find out the latest in Latino childhood obesity policy, news and updated on Salud America!
Salud America! is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation network to pevent obesity among Latino kids. The network is directed by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, which developed SaludToday. To sign up to receive Salud America! E-newsletters, go here.
Hispanic-Serving Groups Largely Unaware of Available State Support
Aug 10th
About 6 out of 10 Hispanic-serving organization representatives were unaware of state government grants available to support the services they are providing or could provide in their local Hispanic community, according to survey results on perceptions of state and federal government grant funding.
Survey respondents were more aware of federal grants, though.
The survey, conducted by Urban Strategies, in partnership with the National Alliance for Hispanic Families (NAHF), aimed to understand whether Hispanic-serving organizations are aware of and accessing government grants and to gather their input on ways to increase the level of government support to Hispanic-serving organizations. More than 125 people completed the survey.
“The findings of this survey imply that more work needs to be done to inform policymakers and federal agency leadership about the needs and challenges facing Hispanic communities and the organizations who serve them,” according to the NAHF. “Policy direction could also focus on ensuring that funds to serve Hispanic communities are allocated to organizations from within the Hispanic community that have a demonstrated track record of providing culturally appropriate services. Efforts could also focus on helping smaller, less established Hispanic-serving organizations compete for grant funds.”
Survey results will inform discussions with policymakers to take place in Summer 2010.
To read more about the results and the effort, go here.