Latino Health Institute Hopes to Accomplish Multiple Missions
The Latino Health Institute of New Jersey was founded this fall. One of its many missions: document the disparities between the healthcare of the state's 1.5 million Latinos and that of its overall population.
Funded by a $190,000 federal grant to the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey, the institute will explore the relatively high incidence of chronic ailments like heart disease, obesity and diabetes among Latinos, according to Martin Perez, president of the alliance.
The institute also will investigate the limited options for Latinos to adopt healthy lifestyles due to a lack of fresh fruits and vegetables and opportunities to exercise in their neighborhoods, as well as the impact of poverty and limited access to health insurance and medical care on Latino life.
According to the institute, 30 percent of Latinos are uninsured, compared with 14 percent of New Jerseyans. And 20 percent live in poverty; the overall rate for New Jersey is 10.7 percent.
The institute cited CDC statistics that some 12 percent of Latinos have been diagnosed with diabetes -- but about a quarter of all cases are believed to be undiagnosed.
"Diabetes is obviously for us one of the leading killers," said Robert Montemayor, director of the Latino Information Network at Rutgers University. "My mother and father, my brother and sister and myself as well," all have diabetes. "This may be something that can be caught earlier with some education and outreach efforts," he said, speaking at a Latin Health Summit this past month.
There is a wealth of information available on Latino health, acknowledged William J. Ayala, institute director. But he added that much of that information is outdated or not specific to New Jersey.
Ayala said the institute's goal is to become a storehouse of information on Latino health in New Jersey, which will be available to all. "Information should be readily available to everyone and easy to access, and we don't have that on the state level," he said. Researchers "do very good work, and they publish papers that wind up in a medical journals. And when you go online you have to pay $40 to access them -- and that is a barrier. We want to create a system where the work is being done that has a practical utility for the community.
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