Although fewer Americans overall are dying from heart disease than 40 years ago, researchers have found that the top “hotbeds” for heart disease have migrated to the Southern U.S. In the 1970s, the counties with the highest heart disease rates were clustered in the northeast, according to a new study, HealthDay reports. Now, they are concentrated in what is considered the “deep” South, a region where the Latino population is large. The U.S. southwest, for example, is by far the most Latino region of the country, but the entire Latino population is booming in the South, according to a report. The study has not determined the causes for the shift, only the trend. “[From] other studies we know the socioeconomic conditions of a county can affect rates of smoking and ...
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of Minority Health (CMS OMH) recently released an interactive map that illustrates disparities in chronic diseases geographically for Medicare beneficiaries. The Mapping Medicare Disparities (MMD) Tool can identify disparities in health outcomes, utilization, and spending by race, ethnicity, and geographic location. “Our commitment to health equity begins with properly measuring the care people get and having an honest dialogue on how and where we need to improve,” said CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt. “Today’s tool aims to make it harder for disparities to go unaddressed.” Understanding the geographic differences in certain disparities is important for a number of reasons. This understanding helps to inform ...
Over the last several years, millions of U.S. kids have been connected with free or low-cost health coverage through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). But more than 3 million kids remain eligible but uninsured, including many Latino kids. Join us for a #SaludTues Tweetchat on Sept. 15, 2015, to tweet about what we can do to close the gap and make sure that all kids—and more parents, too—get the health insurance they need and deserve: WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “Connecting Latino Kids to Health Coverage”
DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET (Noon-1 p.m. CT), Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015
WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues
HOST: @SaludToday
CO-HOSTS: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Connecting Kids to Coverage Campaign (@IKNGov) and ...
What is health equity? The answer to this question, which has strong implications for Latino and other minority populations, is part of a new series of infographics from the Health Equity Institute at San Francisco State University. Infographic 1 defines health equity as "efforts to ensure that all people have full and equal access to opportunities that enable them to lead healthy lives" and identifies a framework to show how social, economic, and environmental conditions affect health and health equity in a number of ways. To achieve health equity, we must treat everyone equally and eliminate avoidable health inequities and health disparities. Health inequities (Infographic 2) are health differences "that are avoidable, unfair, and unjust." Health disparities (Infographic ...
