![]() For Spanish-only speakers, health education and medical care must be provided in Spanish at appropriate literacy levels. Medical experts agree that multi-level structural interventions are necessary to begin to address the inequities faced by Hispanic, Black and other populations during the pandemic. "There was an additive and multiplicative effect where you'd see disproportionate Black and Hispanic populations dying, or presenting to the hospital with severe COVID, because of the disparities they face, and it was really traumatic." So, communities already at a disadvantage have less health literacy, "and it compounds the problem," said Carlos Jose Rodriguez. "Those whose main language is Spanish have not had the same access to information." ![]() "One of the most important factors of acculturation is language status, how you interact with the world, your health care system, even your health literacy," Fatima Rodriguez said. A census survey this past spring showed people who chose to answer the questions in Spanish reported two times the level of food insufficiency as Hispanic participants who responded in English. Census Bureau, there are deeper disparities that Spanish-only speakers face. While more than 65% of Hispanic people in the United States are native-born and English speakers, according to the U.S. Deaths were greater in the Midwest counties. Language barriers can leave critical health information about how the coronavirus spreads or how to get tested or vaccinated inaccessible to people with limited or no English proficiency.Ī 2020 study in Annals of Epidemiology examined how COVID-19 risks and deaths among Hispanic populations differ by region and are associated with employment rates, heart disease deaths, and less social distancing.Īccording to the study, cases of COVID-19 were greater in counties with large Hispanic populations in the Northeast and Midwest and in counties with more monolingual Spanish speakers. It just affected Latinos and a lot of disenfranchised Americans in many ways." Everything is out of whack because they have not been able to take care of themselves properly. "And as a cardiologist, I can tell you their risk factors are all out of control: diabetes, hypertension, heart failure. "Many were living on the edge before the pandemic, but now you are talking about severe mental health crisis because people didn't have a way to support themselves, and if they had family members relying on them, it was very distressing. Carlos Jose Rodriguez, director of cardiovascular epidemiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. "People have been living on the edge," said Dr. Others with jobs that can't be done remotely have had to soldier on and go to work despite the risk of exposure. Latino workers have faced the largest losses in employment, especially in the service industry. Isolation in the pandemic has led to loss of the usual support systems that would typically carry Hispanic workers through severe economic and food insecurity. (Race and ethnicity data is available for 65% of the nation's cases.) 9, Hispanic people comprise 27% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., even though they make up 18.5% of the total population. According to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from Oct. Overall, Hispanic people continue to disproportionally require hospitalization or die at higher rates from the virus than white people. Whether it's food insecurity or homelessness, all those aspects of where you live have never been more important and when you have a weak public health infrastructure, you get all the downstream consequences of that." It makes it very hard to isolate if you test positive. "Often the whole family, many generations, live together. "It has to do with the kind of jobs people do, the kind of communities people live in. ![]() Fatima Rodriguez, a cardiologist and assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine in California. ![]() "This is about structural racism and structural inequities," said Dr. ![]()
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