Hispanic health

Summer Nutrition Program to Begin

The Laredo Independent School District will be offering a free food program during the summer, beginning June 6, for all children and youth under the age of 18. There are no requirements or registration involved. According to Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Todd Staples, “The food is served to all regardless of economic status and even includes students with disabilities over 18 who are enrolled in the school nutrition program.” Breakfast, lunch and snacks will be offered Monday through Thursday in 62 locations, including schools, county recreation centers, libraries, housing, churches and other community settings.

Information (including sites and times of meals) on the Laredo program can be obtained by calling the 311 system or visiting the Laredo Independent School District News and Information page. To find other local locations for the summer nutrition program throughout the state, please visit the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Summer Nutrition Program website.

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Texas-Mexican Border Study finds pesticides a BIG problem.

HARLINGEN,TX— Air samples from homes of Hispanic mothers-to-be along the Texas-Mexico border contained multiple pesticides in a majority of the houses, according to a study conducted by the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio.
Several studies have reported that pesticide exposure may adversely affect mental and motor development of the infants during infancy and childhood. The new report is in the summer issue of the Texas Public Health Journal .

Click Here to read the entire story as it appears in the HSC News Publication, and what suggestions are being made to remedy the situation. Story by Will Sansom and Sheila Hotchkin.

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U.S. Border Residents Seeking Care in Mexico

A study scheduled for publication in the November 2008 issue of AJPH examines the factors associated with Mexican-American border residents’ use of health services in Mexico. The authors, from UT-Pan Am and the UT School of Public Health in Austin, found that middle-income Mexican-Americans were more likely to seek care in Mexico:

“An interesting profile of users and nonusers of Mexican health care emerged from these findings; those at the opposite ends of the household income categories were less likely to use medical care in Mexico for entirely different reasons. Participants with household incomes below $7000 reported either Medicaid coverage or dependence on free or reduced cost medical care in the United States. Conversely, those reporting incomes higher than $30000 were more likely to have private health insurance and used US health care. Participants in the… middle-income categories were more likely to be uninsured and to use medical care in Mexico.”

A key conclusion is that, “… as the health care system in the United States becomes increasingly expensive relative to the alternative in Mexico, the incentive to cross the border for health care will remain an important option for border residents and an important dimension of the border’s social context.”

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Undocumented Hispanics Less Likely to Use US Health Care Services

This brief article from HealthDay (via MedlinePlus Health News) summarizes the findings of a recent study that analyzed four specific subsets of data from the 2003 California Health Interview Survey to identify patterns in the healthcare choices and experiences of California Hispanics — patterns which are very much worth our attention here in South Texas.

The study, entitled “Health Care Access, Use of Services, and Experiences Among Undocumented Mexicans and Other Latinos,” analyzed responses from four specific subsets of the 42,000+ respondents to the 2003 CHIS: 1,317 undocumented Mexicans, 2,851 US-born Mexicans, 271 undocumented Hispanics from countries other than Mexico, and 852 US-born Hispanics from non-Mexican heritage. Results found that…

undocumented Mexicans had 1.6 fewer physician visits compared with US-born Mexicans; other undocumented Latinos had 2.1 fewer visits compared with their US-born counterparts. Both undocumented groups were less likely to report difficulty obtaining necessary health care than US-born Mexicans and other US-born Latinos. Undocumented Mexicans were less likely to have a usual source of care and were more likely to report negative experiences than US-born Mexicans. Findings were similar for other undocumented Latinos, with the exception of having a usual source of care. Patterns of access to and use of health care services tended to improve with changing legal status.

Here’s the citation for the complete study:

Ortega AN, Fang H, Perez VH, Rizzo JA, Carter-Pokras O, Wallace SP, Gelberg, L. Health Care Access, Use of Services, and Experiences Among Undocumented Mexicans and Other Latinos. Arch Intern Med 2007;167(21):2354-2360. http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/167/21/2354

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Universal Symbols

The UCSF Fresno Center for Medical Education and Research is developing and testing best practices which aim at breaking down the communication barriers than can compromise care. Hablamos Juntos, a project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, seeks to improve the quality of health care for Latinos ” the largest ethnic minority (~ 38.8 million) in the United States. Approximately 14 million speak English with limited proficiency. One of the projects has developed symbols for health signage that provide more effective guidance for patients. These 28 health care symbols are available in the public domain and free to anyone to download. There are no fees associated with their use and written permission is not needed.

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Upcoming Women’s Health Conference in Laredo

Texas A&M International University and KLRN have joined together to bring the Women’s Health Conference to the TAMIU Student Center in Laredo, on Saturday, Jan. 19.

The purpose of the conference is to help women make informed choices about their health through the exchange of information in the form of speakers, breakout sessions, and health screenings.

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UTHealth Researchers Find Diabetics at Higher Risk of Tuberculosis Infection

Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston have announced that people in US-Mexico border communities who are living with diabetes have a three to five times higher risk of contracting tuberculosis. The results of the study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, were published in the May issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization and reported on the UT Health website.

Tuberculosis is an ongoing problem for communities on both sides of the border, such as Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. The two Laredos current have 120 cases of TB, but joint efforts by the two cities’ public health organizations have helped to keep the spread of the disease under control according to a recent article in the Laredo Sun.

The most common signs and symptoms of TB, which is spread through the air, are a cough with phlegm for more than 15 days, sometimes bloody, fever, night sweats, momentary dizziness, chills and weight loss.

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UTHSC pilot project funded to investigate methods for diabetes education

Dr. Adelita Cantu from the UT Health Science Center (UTHSC) School of Nursing and colleagues from UTSA, the Texas Diabetes Institute, and UTHSC recently received funding from the Institute for Integration of Medicine and Science for a one-year pilot project on diabetes education. This project forms an “innovative academic-community partnership” to investigate and better understand “how Mexican Americans with diabetes or at risk of diabetes use health information to make daily decisions about their self care management.” Investigators hope to determine whether participation in Salsa Caliente, a specially tailored curriculum, and enhanced education about accessing health information on the Internet will make a difference in diabetes awareness, management, and knowledge vs participation in Salsa Caliente alone. Half of the participants in this project will receive a laptop computer to use at home and will be trained to use MedlinePlus and other reliable Internet sites. The other half of the participants will receive general education and will not have immediate access to a computer. The project will end on April 30, 2011.

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VII Semana Binacional de Salud

The Seventh Binational Health Week will take place October 13-21, 2007 in 31 states in the U.S. and 3 provinces in Canada, with the participation of the 46 Mexican consulates, 11 Guatemalan consulates, 12 Salvadoran consulates, 9 Colombian consulates and the Mexican states with high rates of migration. Major events will include the inaugural event and Binational Policy Forum on Migration and Health to be held in Los Angeles on 14-16 October, a workshop for promotores de salud in El Paso on 11 October, and the closing event in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas on 19 October. Other events including health fairs, screenings, vaccination, and preventative health promotion will take place in over 200 cities across North America through the Mexican consular network and cooperating partner institutions.

La VIIa Semana Binacional de Salud se llevará a cabo del 13 al 21 de octubre del 2007 en 31 estados de los EE UU y 3 provincias de Canadá, con la participación de los 46 consulados de México, 11 consulados de Guatemala, 12 consulados de El Salvador, 9 consulados colombianos y los estados mexicanos con tasas altas de migración. Eventos importantes incluyen la apertura y Foro Binacional de Políticas Públicas en Salud y Migración, que se presentará en Los Angeles del 14 al 16 de octubre, un taller para promotoras/promotores de salud en El Paso el 11 de octubre, y la clausura en Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas el 19 de octubre. Otros eventos tales como ferias de salud, vacunación y promoción de salud preventiva ocurrirán en más de 200 ciudades norteamericanas a través de la red consular mexicana y otras instituciones. Cobertura de Notimex aquí.

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Women, Mexican Americans at Higher Risk for Certain Stroke

On June 11, HealthDay reported on a study published in the most recent issue of Neurology which indicated that Mexican Americans and women may have an increased risk of experiencing a stroke in which there is bleeding in the space around the brain. The Health Day news item states:

“Researchers, reviewing the medical records of almost 30,000 people over age 44 in southeast Texas, found that Mexican Americans ran nearly twice the risk of a subarachnoid hemorrhage than white people. Women, they found, had a one-and-three-quarters-fold increased risk of having this type of stroke.

Only 107 of the 29,907 people in the study experienced a subarachnoid hemorrhage during the seven-year study period.

A subarachnoid hemorrhage often results from a cerebral aneurysm, a blistering of a blood vessel. Even if caught early, it could kill a person or lead to severe disability. The condition may cause a person to have a severe or “thunderclap” headache. Vomiting, seizures and neck stiffness may accompany the headache.

‘Physicians and public health officials should help Mexican Americans and women take steps which might prevent subarachnoid hemorrhage,’ study author Dr. Lewis B. Morgenstern, director of the University of Michigan Stroke Program in Ann Arbor, said in a prepared statement. ‘Given that Mexican Americans account for the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States, it is important to examine how this condition may affect certain ethnicities differently.’

Tobacco use and hypertension treatment differences among ethnic groups may have played a role in the study’s outcome, he said, noting that since the study took place in one geographic area, its results may not hold for other locations.