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Blog Post #7 Part 3:

Common Purpose: This post is uploaded by an organization, and when looking up the hashtag #nationalallianceforhispanichealth, you see multiple organizations/groups posting about them. Common purpose is where an issue is common everywhere and people come together to bring focus on a similar issue. The Latino and Hispanic community struggles everywhere across the United States with accessing healthcare, and having organizations coming together to help bring awareness to the issue will help the communities more and more with the help they need. Even though these are separate organizations or groups, they still have a common goal of helping the Latino and Hispanic communities that are less fortunate by broadcasting ways to gain help.

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Blog Post #7 Part 2:

Congruent: In the case of this Tik Tok, the main speaker brings up multiple points made about the mistreatment and discrimination present in healthcare perpetuated by heathcare workers. The discrimination talked about in this Tik Tok is focused on the Latin American immigrant community, and the amount of codewords and actions that are used against them in order to limit their amount of care. This social issue relates back to Congruence, for the reason that the people having this discussion, and calling out the mistreatment and blatant discrimination present in the healthcare field matches their inner values to the action that they are taking. The person talking is not only self-aware about the situation affecting this community, but actively works to bring attention to the issue using the platform that he has. The Tik Tok at this moment has over 70k views. This tiktoker has many other videos discussing topics such as this one, along with other informational and inspirational videos that discuss the need for more Latinx representation in medicine, resources still needed, etc.

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Blog Post #7 Part 1:

Citizenship: This social media post was posted on twitter to bring more attention to the new program that the state of Illinois had started that would provide healthcare coverage to senior citizens. It was found that the most amount of seniors it was being served to were those who were Latino immigrants. Since this post gives us an idea of an example of how communities can be helped, serviced and included, this post would fit the Citizenship C of Komives 7 C’s. There is active engagement ready to serve this community, which is in need of healthcare, and there is a leadership group who is actively making sure that they accomplish this.

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Blog Post #6: 

“Undocumented Immigrants, dont have the basic rights to live a healthy life” (Deniss, Rojas Marquez, 2019). With that shock, she realized that she needed to pursue the medical field and advocate for policy change for basic health care for immigrants and other people at disadvantages.

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Blog Post #5: Compare and Contrast

The chosen articles Health Disparities in the Latino Population and Health Care use and Barriers to Care among Latino Immigrants in a New Migration Area both strongly emphasize the fact that there are Health disparities in the Latino Immigrant populations. They both speak about inadequate access to healthcare, language barriers, and Latino Immigrants moving to “non-traditional states”. The traditional states are California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, or areas with heavy Latino populations. What makes them different is Health Care use and Barriers to Care among Latino Immigrants in a New Migration Area focuses strongly on a specific location, with a small community. Their study is based in Latino Immigrants living in Ohio. They found that their group, “participants relied on community clinics for care more often than is seen in nationwide Hispanic samples” (Health Care use and Barriers, 2016). Health Disparities in the Latino Population goes more into detail, as the authors analyze what other factors lead to high mortality rates in Latino populations. They “include inadequate access to health care and poor screening rates, greater exposure to multiple lifestyle factors negatively affecting health behaviors, greater occupational hazards, higher rates of cumulative adversity, and exposure to adverse residential-environmental conditions over the life course” (Health Disparities in the Latino Population, 2009).

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Figure 1: Age-adjusted rates of death from all causes for all persons and for Latinos, United States, selected years between 1990 and 2005. Data were obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics (20).

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Blog Post #5: Second Article

In our second article, titled Health Disparities in the Latino Population, it compares the difference in health that the latino population in the United State goes through, whether they’re immigrants or not. In the article, it states that Latinos tend to be healthier than non-Latinos and how Latinos have a lower mortality rate than non-Latinos. Even though Latinos tend to live longer (the article states that the life expectancy for a Latino in the United States is 82, whereas it’s in the late 70’s for their foreign birth place), the article goes in depth on the disparities that Latinos typically go through. There’s many high-risk health complications that Latinos go through, such as various cancers and HIV, which are higher than non-Latinos in America. The article wraps up with immigrants sadly not getting the care they need because of language barriers and not having easy access to affordable healthcare. It does go over, however, the fact that people are working towards making healthcare more accessible to Latinos and keeping them healthier so they can live a better life in the United States.

References:

Vega, W., Rodriguez, M., & Gruskin, E., (2009). Health Disparities in the Latino Population, Epidemiologic Reviews, 31(1), 99–112, https://doi.org/10.1093/epirev/mxp008

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Figure 1. Growth in Latino Population in Cincinnati Area, 2000–2010.

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Blog Post #5: First Article

The article titled Health Care Use and Barriers to Care among Latino Immigrants in a New Migration Area is a group research project focusing on using surveys and focus groups administered to a specific population of  Latino immigrants. In this case, the population is situated in Ohio. The article researched the amount of health disparities present in these communities, specifically in states where there was a growing Latino population which had previously been much smaller. They define health disparities as any type of barrier or lack of information in the way of these communities receiving adequate healthcare. The health disparities that were mostly brought up by the people they interviewed and were found to be present were “[Lack of] language, lack of quality interpreters, documentation status, and Discrimination” (Jacquez, 2016, p. 1761). Throughout the article they go on to discuss other findings that came up, analyzed their data, and came to a conclusion. The conclusion based on their findings, and they argued that while there are many other issues impacting the accessibility of healthcare for these communities, there were also deeper infrastructural problems in the healthcare system in this part of the country, specifically Ohio, as the system was not ready to have such an influx of Latin American immigrant people, and therefore were not able to give them the proper resources. Overall, across the U.S., these communities are having a hard time accessing healthcare, but some states have it harder than others.

References:

Jacquez, F., Vaughn, L., Zhen-Duan, J., & Graham, C. (2016). Health Care Use and Barriers to Care among Latino Immigrants in a New Migration Area. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 27(4), 1761-1778. doi:10.1353/hpu.2016.0161.

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Social Change Blog Post #4 Podcast

Doctor Ramon Jimenez, an orthopedic surgeon speaks with Ed Alvarez, the president of the Latino Education Advancement Foundation in the San Francisco Bay area. They discuss how health disparities affect the Latino community on all levels. How the health disparities cause the younger generations to not want to pursue health careers. How first generation students in low income, who rarely see the doctor, won’t want to pursue becoming doctors, nurses. They discuss how Latino students that are first generation college students and low income families don’t know how to self advocate for themselves. Therefore they don’t have the resources to pursue a health career. How a majority’s parents didn’t attend higher education themselves, so the student’s don’t have someone to guide them through a health career. They speak about how if Latino people speak with a Latino doctor they are more likely to trust and speak out about their health issues. If their teachers are Latino they are more likely to learn from them. How overall health disparities not only affect the Latino communities health, but their careers and education.

Educators discuss how more Hispanics can enter the healthcare workforce. Part 1, featuring Ed Alvarez. 

Link: https://bit.ly/2M25NHo

Movement is life. (2021, January 13). Health Disparities Podcast, Educators discuss how more Hispanics can enter the healthcare workforce. Part 1, featuring Ed Alvarez. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLmZlZWRidXJuZXIuY29tL1RoZUhlYWx0aERpc3Bhcml0aWVzUG9kY2FzdA/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubW92ZW1lbnRpc2xpZmVjYXVjdXMuY29tLz9wb3N0X3R5cGU9bWlsX3BvZGNhc3QmcD00NTc3?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwjAnfLTwPHuAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAw&hl=en

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Logic the Rapper, creator of the song America.

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Blog Post #4 Our Social Change song choice:  The song titled “America” by Logic is about the United States and social injustices that this country perpetrates against minorities. The artist heavily uses profanity throughout it. The lyrics serve as a call to action, and a wake up call to anyone who is ignorant to the real issues affecting massive amounts of people in this country. The words used are also words of empowerment, and telling the listener to step up and fight against these issues, or the system will continue to push them down, and be the way that it is. Social change is a strong message that he attempts to invoke on the listener, all while also using profanity to emphasize the message. 

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Summary of Interview

For our interview we chose Familias en Acción as our organization and the stakeholders. We were able to interview someone named Jocelin Garcia, who works with this organization as a community health worker. She spoke to us about how her organization works with the Latin American immigrant community, as well as the main issues her organization tries to address. She also spoke about her experiences as a daughter of the community she is actively trying to help, and how that has impacted her views of healthcare and the overall problem. She spoke out about how she witnessed her parents struggle, especially concerning their health, among other factors that made their life harder. She talked about the true sense of urgency and negative impacts that Covid-19 has put on the community, and how this has exposed the inequitable healthcare system that she was already aware of. She understood how certain factors played a role in why the latino community is impacted so much compared to other communities, at least concerning Oregon. She mentioned overworking, unhealthy eating habits, and lack of education about sexual and health education as some of these factors. Throughout the interview she showed passion and a true sense of selflessness when talking about her work, and how she involves herself.

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Interview Transcript

Kim: What is your name and title/position that you hold? For how many years have you worked in this position/organization?

(⅙) “My name is Jocelin Garcia and I am a community health worker working with Familias en Acción for 2 years.” 

2. Kim: What is the main issue your organization is trying to address?

(2/6) “The main issue our organization is facing is disparities within the Latino community, health care problems and health care system. Specifically with people who do not speak English. HIV, Aids, health education, sex education are also other topics we talk about and try to educate the community in. Taboo subjects such as homosexuality⎼hush topics. Nutrition and health programs, food equity and food resource accessibility are also addressed. Obviously Snap and WIC too.”

3. Jade: Why did you choose to work in this organization?

(3/6) “The culture around work is so different here, how much you can produce and put out, employers make everyone feel important, the community and giving back to the community. I care about the community, experiencing community problems especially with having immigrant parents affected how I view the system. I cared about the problems affecting our community. When it comes to health, when you get an illness sometimes the insurance wants to save money or the hospital wants to save money and doesn’t give resources to the community. There are a lot of problems for providing mental and physical health. The reason I went to college was because of my parents. Them traveling out here wasn’t because they wanted a better life for themselves, it was for their children too.”

4. Jade: What is your personal view of the problem?

(4/6) “I have a passion for helping, our communities suffer a lot of chronic illnesses, you know, in my opinion medical insurance lacks, there is not a lot of preventative care. Familias tries to provide these classes, teach them to eat healthy, trying to advocate for drivers license, but overall the community. I want to be a bridge between the Latino community and this society. Unless there is someone to guide them, they um, do it alone. Out here in the PNW not a lot of people speak Spanish. In my opinion, there is a systemic problem, there are many challenges with getting the help we need, a lot is lacking in certain areas. Not having the access to get help in a medical sense, mental, spiritual.”

5. Pedro: Who has a stake or interest in helping to diminish health disparities within Latin American immigrant communities?

(⅚) “Who has a stake? Well...the youth I guess, the children of these immigrants. We wanna see our parents thrive, we wanna give back, the reason I went to college is for my parents, because they came here to give me a better life. I want to set an example for others, for my children, for others. Our communities suffer from a lot of diseases and problems. There's not a lot of preventative care in our communities.”

6. Pedro: How are these stakeholders impacted differently by this problem? How is the specific group you work for affected by the problem?

(6/6) “Right now we are working a lot for covid relief. There are very few professionals who speak Spanish, a lot of the Latino community are the ones affected by Covid, they are overworking and um, there’s not a lot of funding. Legislators come to us to solve their problems, ugh, but we are working so hard to address these problems and we need these systems to support us. We need them to build these systems for us, not the other way around. Este, the Latino community gets the worst end of the stick. They are so overworked that by the time they get home they just want to sit down and watch TV. Chronic illnesses are often present, and there’s no time to get to the hospital. Sometimes we don’t even get taught how to eat healthy, we live paycheck to paycheck, and Covid magnified these needs. People were working paycheck to paycheck before, and now that paycheck isn't coming through at all. There is a snowball effect and it is really hard to get out of that. There's also a lack of transportation, not having access to money, or technology for things most people need. Covid making things worse for people to gain access to the education or resources most others are able to get their hands onto.”

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Familias en Acción Homepage

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Blog Post #2

The Oregonian April 8, 2020: Oregon’s Latino population disproportionately hit hard by coronavirus cases: 

This article discusses the growing disparity between which race and ethnic groups are being affected the most by COVID-19. At the point of this article being posted it was found that; “Latinos make up 13% of the state’s population, [but] they represent at least 18% of all positive cases -- and potentially far more” (Davis, 2020). During this earlier point in the pandemic, it was already evident that minority groups were being affected more by the virus, as a result of other underlying factors which made them more susceptible to contracting it. An argument that the article makes for this finding is that there are several issues at play, such as working at an essential job and having a job with no sick time. Both of these issues unfortunately force a large portion of the Latino community to continue to go outside, unable to have the luxury of staying at home during the pandemic. The number of people being affected in the Latino community are also disproportionately affected in Washington County, where there is a large number of this community. The opposing article or argument, brings up that the health care disparities facing the Latino population, are not only affecting this group. The other article argues that if anything, the Black population of the US is more disproportionately impacted than any other racial minority. This goes to say that the institutionally racist systems set in place by our society end up affecting ethnic communities in different ways, and at various intervals. 

Davis, R. (2020, April 09). Oregon's Latino population disproportionately hit hard by coronavirus CASES. Retrieved February 03, 2021, from https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/04/oregons-latino-population-disproportionately-hit-hard-by-coronavirus-cases.html

OPB February 4th, 2021: Racial, ethnic minorities hit harder by COVID-19:

In this article we are able to see that the latino community isn’t the only minority group that is getting hit hard with the Corona virus in Oregon. The African American and Native American communities are also getting affected greatly and aren’t able to fully get the help they need, just as much as the latinos. This doesn’t mean that the virus is discriminatory, as the article states, but it means that minority groups all can’t receive the same help as most of the white population. So, why focus on one group, when they all need the attention of help. That being said, medical professionals and community organizers of minority groups, have started to work together to find ways in helping everyone who doesn’t have the access to medical help. This is them finding a way for it to be affordable and much more available to anyone who wouldn’t have it at their fingertips. So, the minority groups might not be struggling as much as we were thinking because big organizations are helping them get what they need. Doctors might’ve been helping them already, and not been discriminating against patients based on the color of their skin. As stated in the article, doctors are supposed to ask patients to describe themselves, but in some situations, they don’t want to make others uncomfortable, and skip that part. So, it is likely that minorities have already been starting to get the help they need, the information just isn’t accessible to the community because the information was never put down. So, all groups, Natives, African Americans, and Latinos might be already getting the help they need, and people are luckily pushing to help them even more.

Sabatier, C. (2020, June 03). Racial, ethnic minorities hit harder by covid-19. Retrieved February 05, 2021, from https://www.opb.org/news/article/racial-ethnic-minorities-hit-harder-by-covid-19/