Amid the baby formula shortage, American women are now facing a tampon shortage. The shortage has resulted in a 10% price increase in the last year, with some retailers price gouging as high as $114 for one box of 18 tampons. The shortage stems from the economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, including a shortage of raw materials and labor. As some women frustratingly scour multiple stores to buy menstrual hygiene products, others fall deeper into period poverty.
The High Cost of Menstruating
While menstruating women nationwide are affected by this shortage, low-income women, such as Latinas, are hit particularly hard as they already face disproportionate health inequities, including a lack of access to healthy food, affordable housing, and childcare. Nearly 22 ...
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Javier Cintron listened intently to the Haitian man. Far from his home in Panama City, Florida, Javier was in Haiti on a research internship while pursuing his undergraduate education in biology and medical anthropology. As he heard the Haitian man describe the community’s health inequities, Javier thought about what he could do during his internship to help. That winter, Javier evaluated current efforts to improve the community’s overall nutrition and health and reported his findings to a volunteer group that would decide how to proceed. His contributions brought attention to potential root causes of health inequities in the community, such as lack of access to clean water. “They had to pay for a weekly supply of clean water,” Javier ...
More than 50 million people in the US are under excessive heat warnings, and more than 25 major cities have tied or broken record-high temperatures this year, according to NPR. Heat waves are nothing new, but they are becoming increasingly more common and more severe because of climate change, which is a threat to public health, especially for Latinos. In fact, about 702 heat-related deaths occur each year due to heat stroke and related diseases. “Hot weather is associated with an increase in heat-related illnesses, including cardiovascular and respiratory complications, renal failure, electrolyte imbalance, kidney stones, negative impacts on fetal health, and preterm birth,” the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) stated. “Specifically, death rates are noted ...
Parents of babies across the US are struggling to feed their children due to a baby-formula shortage. The pain of the shortage is particularly felt among low-income families, such as Blacks and Latinos, who already suffer inequities in maternal and child health. The shortage began during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when America seemingly ran out of everything – from toilet paper to fresh produce. In late February 2022, a baby formula recall, which caused two infant deaths, worsened the shortage. In many states, including Texas and Tennessee, where infants depend on formula for more than half of their diet, formula is sold out in stores. For parents such as Yury Navas, an immigrant Latina mother in Maryland, providing formula for her child is especially ...
Migrating and resettling in a new country is a difficult process, marked with mental, emotional, and physical challenges, including potential family separation. For Latino immigrants, challenges may continue even after resettlement in the US, including significant socioeconomic and healthcare access disadvantages. Despite these hardships, studies show that Latino immigrants have better physical and mental health outcomes compared to their US-born counterparts. This interesting phenomenon is known as the Latino Immigrant Paradox. And the paradox applies to parents, too, according to a new report. Latino immigrant parents have a lower prevalence of mental health disorders (29%) than Latino parents born in the United States (51%), according to a report by the National Research ...
Oncologists who identify as Latino remain highly underrepresented in the workforce, according to a new report from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Although the percentage of Latino hematologists/oncologists has risen slightly over the past decade, from 4.1% in 2008 to 4.7% in 2018, Latino participation decreases at nearly every step in the path to becoming an oncologist, according to ASCO. “As a result, [Latino] patients are deprived the benefits of a representative workforce, such as improved access, enhanced culturally and linguistically competent care, and minimization of health disparities,” wrote Dr. Gladys Rodriguez of the START Center for Cancer Care in San Antonio, and her colleagues, in a recent study in JCO Oncology Practice. Why is this a ...
Where you live, work, and play significantly impacts overall wellbeing. That’s why it’s important to explore and understand health inequities that can impact quality of life and health outcomes for Latinos and other people of color. County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR&R) is one such resource that helps leaders and county residents evaluate their community on a national scale. Created by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CHR&R publishes an annual national findings report. The report revealed worsening health trends for women, minorities, and low-income individuals in 2022, similar to the 2021 report findings, but driven by COVID-19, the worst public health crisis in more than a ...
As the average American takes a shower, cooks, or enjoys a drink from the tap, chances are they simply turn on a faucet to access clean, drinkable water. People who live in colonias have a much harsher experience. While the average American uses 88 gallons of water per day, Cochran colonia residents in El Paso County, Texas, use a mere 50 to 100 gallons per month, facing daily struggles for safe water. Join us as Salud America! explores this rising health disparity through a three-part series on Latino drinking water contamination. Part 1 focused on nitrates, how prevalent they are in Latino drinking water, and emerging efforts to promote safer water for Latinos and all people. Part 2 addressed drinking water contamination at Superfund sites, its impact on Latinos, and ...
Research suggests that Latinos are more likely to live near Superfund sites with contaminated drinking water, increasing risks for adverse health effects. This health inequity contributes to a larger issue of Latinos generally having less access to clean, safe drinking water in the US. Join us as Salud America! explores this health disparity through a three-part series on Latino drinking water contamination. Part 1 focused on nitrates in drinking water, how prevalent nitrate-contaminated drinking water is in Latino communities, and how the nation is promoting safer water for Latinos and all people. Today, in Part 2, we will address contaminated drinking water at Superfund sites, its impact on Latinos, and current efforts to promote safer drinking water in these ...
