Diabetes is a chronic disease that affects millions of Americans. In addition to everyday tasks, people with diabetes require self-management of daily glucose levels, meals, physical activity, and medication to keep healthy. Hispanic/Latinos are the largest non-white group in the United States and have the highest rates of Diabetes as compared to other ethnic groups; this can be related to the lack of healthcare, genetics, obesity rates, insulin resistance, lower economic status, and sociocultural factors. (1) In Hispanic/Latino culture, a strong emphasis on family may make it common for adult patients with diabetes to neglect certain health needs to prioritize other’s needs, a concept known as “Familisimo”. (more…)

As my dad reaches retirement age this year, conversations about what comes next have become more frequent between us. Retirement is on his mind although not in the “I’m ready to retire and vacation for the rest of my life” way. The reality is that for him, as is the case for millions of low-wage workers, retirement is a looming dark cloud of uncertainty and economic instability. (more…)

Every year, as a new year is upon us, I feel hope and excitement for all the possibilities the new year has in store. As we approach 2022 and look back on the last year (or two) it is hard to not be discouraged, exhausted, and filled with stress and anxiety as the pandemic continues. It doesn’t lend itself to feelings of excitement and possibility as the Omicron variant surges through our communities. When feelings of sadness and despair start to crowd my mind, it helps me recenter by taking a step back and reflecting on all I am grateful for. (more…)

Many factors influence the prevalence and incidence of type 2 diabetes in the United States. The majority of current intervention strategies focus on the primary prevention and management of type 2 diabetes through individual life modifications. Health education is a commonly implemented approach used to facilitate dietary changes and increase physical activity. While this method is effective, there is an additional factor to consider in preventing and managing diabetes. This factor is known as stress, which can arise from the structures that shape community behavior and at-risk populations’ environment. Considering stress and how it can impact diabetes may provide a new paradigm for creating intervention strategies in the future. (more…)

Check out this new video "Los que me importan" (The Ones I Love). This video tells the story of Salvador, a H2A worker from Mexico, who is unsure about the COVID-19 vaccine. Through a partnership with National Center for Farmworker Health, Health Outreach Partners, and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), this video was created as a health education resource to encourage COVID-19 vaccine confidence among H2A workers. In Spanish with subtitles in English.

There is a good chance that you have heard the story of Latino farm labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez and his role in the Delano Grape Strike in California's Central Valley. In 2014, President Barack Obama declared March 31st a national holiday to commemorate Chavez's legacy. And if you live in California, you have probably seen countless murals, street names, parks, and schools all over the state honoring Cesar Chavez. But have you also heard of Larry Itliong? (more…)

It’s hard to believe 2021 is almost over as we transition from summer to fall and the Covid-19 pandemic continues to leave us feeling isolated, insecure, and exhausted. Many of my friends, co-workers, and family have expressed frustration at the lack of boundaries between a work- personal life balance, which was extremely frayed before the pandemic. (The last two HOP staff blogs discussed burn-out, self-care and healing. We have a theme going!) Now that we have been working at home for the last 18 months, this boundary seems to have disappeared altogether. Over 50% of the US workforce reports feeling burned out – 2021 is being hailed as the Great Resignation. Burnout didn’t come about solely because of the pandemic. The American workforce, especially health care workers, were suffering from this long before March 2020. (more…)

Diabetes prevalence among Latino families/vulnerable populations Hispanic/Latino Americans are a diverse group that includes people of various cultures and races. Hispanics are the largest minority in the United States and have higher rates of diabetes in both adults and children as compared to other racial/ethnic groups. ⁽¹⁾ Latinos are among the fastest growing groups in the United States and, yet, as a whole have low access to medical care and poor general health partly due to sociocultural factors related to economic status. Adults in the United States have a 40 percent chance of developing type 2 diabetes as compared to the 50 percent chance of Hispanic and Latino adults causing higher rates of diabetes-related complications such as kidney failure and vision loss. Hispanics/Latinos are most prevalent to diabetes which can be linked to their cultural values, food, genetics, education levels, and social support systems. ⁽²⁾ (more…)

“They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds” – Dinos Christianopoulos

It’s Hispanic Heritage month and it’s a bittersweet time of the year for me.  On one hand, I don’t identify as Hispanic, on the other, I too am a descendent of colonized people by the Spanish Conquest of what is now known as the Americas.  I can be both patriotic of my motherland and critical of the so-called nation-borders that divide us and strip us of our roots.  I identify as Xicana with an ‘X’ as most of my friends and peers feel the need to emphasize.  Xicana, is different than Chicana with a ‘Ch’ in that the ‘X’ is rooted in the parts of our identity that are intentionally made invisible, like our indigeneity and decolonial consciousness.  I am part of a growing group of people that are challenging the erasure of our people’s history by reclaiming parts of our identity that we refuse to let die.  By reclaiming and acknowledging these identities, we are saying that we are still here and still alive. In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become even more critical to underscore that we won’t be erased.  My people are still here battling colonialism and white supremacy since 1492, the true public health threat of our lives. (more…)

This video is a section taken from a training on August 31, 2021 on the impact of COVID-19 on Latinos in the US, regarding vaccination trends, rates of infection, and other challenges and lessons learned. Due to the changing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic the information within may no longer be up-to-date. This was delivered in partnership with UnidosUS and their Esperanza Hope for All Campaign, funded by the Walmart Foundation. You can learn more about UnidosUS and the Campaign by following them on social media: @WeAreUnidosUS Presented by Patricia Avila-Garcia, Project Manager at Health Outreach Partners. (more…)

“Whatever you’re feeling, be good to yourself. If you feel lost, be patient with yourself while you find your way. If you feel scared, be gentle with yourself while you find the strength to face your fear. If you feel hurt, be kind to yourself while you grieve and slowly heal. You can’t bully yourself into clarity, courage, or peace, and you can’t rush self-discovery or transformation. Some things simply take time, so take the pressure off and give yourself space to grow.”

- Lori Deschene

The year 2020 was a transformative year for the majority of the world.  As society shutdown and quarantining was implemented, many of us needed to adjust to a new reality for the unforeseeable future.  Economic hardships, a mysterious virus, stress, and loneliness wreaked havoc on many individuals.  Essential workers, the heroes that kept our society running, were faced with potentially stressful work environments due to the highly contagious Covid-19 virus along with a demanding workload.  While the occurrence of workplace burnout throughout the Covid-19 pandemic is well documented, I had a very different experience.  For the first time in a long time, despite everything around me, I felt peace.  The pandemic granted me the opportunity to connect with someone that I neglected for years, myself. (more…)

“When we do not allow ourselves to release our emotions we allow ourselves to harbor negative emotions…. When we cry we are actually inviting life back into our bodies and to our spirits.”

- Sobonfu Somé

“See you later alligator...afterwhile crocodile” This was the goodbye my grandmother and I would always say to one another anytime we said goodbye. My grandmother always had a unique way of doing things whether it was in saying goodbye, how we rang her doorbell, or even what each of her grandchildren called her. For me it was Grandmama, she liked that name because she was my only living grandparent and she liked saying how she was my mama’s mama...hence Grandmama. As I write this, I can still hear her voice and remember the scent of her perfume that filled every room of her house. (more…)

Health education is one of the core components of decreasing the prevalence of diabetes and improving health outcomes around the disease, especially when it comes to children. The earlier in a child’s life that they can learn healthy habits, the better their health outcomes will be later in life. Doing this establishes a foundation that will make it easier to maintain healthy behaviors and avoid the controllable factors that contribute to diabetes onset as adults. However, health education can be complex for children, especially younger children. Educators need to consider several strategies when tailoring their content because learning and cognition vary greatly, even from one year of age to the next. It may seem daunting to have so many contingencies in place depending on the specific age of your audience. This can be partially mitigated by including parents and caregivers in the education curriculum, either in-person or through take-home resources. By involving parents as part of your health education, the opportunity for that information to take root will be prolonged beyond that specific event. (more…)

The problem with silence is that it can’t speak up and say why it’s silent. And so silence collects, becomes amplified, takes on a life outside our intentions, in that silence can get misread as indifference, or avoidance, or even shame, and eventually this silences passes over into forgetting.

– Cathy Park Hong From Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

When I first started to plan for this month’s blog post, I wasn’t quite sure about what I wanted to write. Coincidentally, the month of May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) and Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month (APIHM), where we honor, highlight, and celebrate the diverse cultures, narratives, and histories of the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community in the U.S. As a Korean American, I feel overwhelming joy and love for the history, language, and culture of my parents, family, and ancestors. Moreover, I feel lucky to be part of the larger AAPI community. Yet as I write this, it feels rather bittersweet at a time where we’ve seen in the past year such a dramatic rise in AAPI hate and violence in the U.S. But quite honestly, I feel disheartened to say that it’s not surprising given the long history of racism against Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) in this country fueled by white supremacy. (more…)

Content warning: This post discusses gun violence and includes a detailed account of a mass shooting. Fourteen years ago, on a windy and sun-soaked spring afternoon, I ran out of my dorm room and into the arms of a few of my friends who I had only been able to chat with on and off over AOL Instant Messenger in the hours before. All entrances to our campus dormitories had been automatically locked and no one could move between buildings or even floors. Administrators asked that dormitory phone lines be kept open, but the cell towers were being inundated with calls from family and friends of students to verify their safety and whereabouts. I didn’t know what to feel, but it was an uncomfortable combination of fear and anxiety that made it hard to sit still, but also made me a little numb. The only information outlets were the local news channel and a short series of emails advising everyone to stay where they were, that a gunman was "loose" on campus, and that two people were fatally shot in a dorm not far from mine. (more…)