Latino Center for Health co-director Dr. Gino Aisenberg was featured in this report from Univision Seattle regarding our recently published policy brief on the increased prevalence of depression and anxiety among Latinos during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is part of our COVID-19 policy brief series.
Click here to view Univision’s report.
Click here to learn more about our recently published policy brief, “Depression and Anxiety among Latinos: Urgent Call for Mental Health Services.”
A new survey finds increased prevalence in depression and anxiety among Latinos in Washington State. LCH calls for policymakers to recognize this issue as critical and make short- and long-term changes to improve access to mental healthcare.
University of Washington, Seattle: The prevalence of depression and anxiety among Latinos in WA state increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey study conducted by the Latino Center for Health. As part of a COVID-19 policy brief, LCH reports 13% and 16% of respondents scored “depression likely” and “anxiety likely”, respectively. Additionally, 9% of participants’ scores indicate clinically significant comorbidity of anxiety and depression.
This policy brief is part of LCH’s COVID-19 policy brief series. LCH researchers used data from the “Understanding Washington Latinos’ Experiences Around COVID-19” survey developed by the center in partnership with Sea Mar Community Health Centers.
Latinos are disproportionately affected by stressors that negatively impact their mental health. Out of all survey respondents, 39% indicated that they were unemployed, 41% reported that they were uninsured, and 57% reported having completed a high school education or less.
“COVID-19 has illuminated and exacerbated disparities in anxiety and depression impacting Latinos. WA state must do much more to provide accessible, and culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health services for all Latinos in our state, including rural and urban, insured and uninsured, migrant and non-migrant, and immigrant and non-immigrant,” said LCH co-Director Leo S. Morales, MD, PhD, principal investigator of the study.
Overall, scores for “depression likely” and “anxiety likely” were higher among younger (18-30 years old) and older participants (>65 years old), women, divorced, those with higher education, and those with lower incomes.
This policy brief contains a list of recommendations to improve and promote access to culturally and linguistically responsive mental health services to urban and rural Latinos in Washington state. Some short- and long-term recommendations include:
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Sea Mar Community Health Centers, founded in 1978, is a community-based organization committed to providing quality, comprehensive health, human, housing, educational and cultural services to diverse communities, specializing in service to Latinos in Washington state.Sea Mar’snetwork of services includes more than 90 medical, dental, and behavioral health clinics in WA state and a wide variety of nutritional, social, and educational services.
The Washington State Department of Health, Univisión Seattle, and the Latino Center for Health (LCH) co-hosted a Spanish-speaking virtual panel on May 13, 2021 about going back to school in times of COVID. Among the panelists was Dr. Nathalia Jimenez, pediatric anesthesiologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Research Director of LCH.
Dr. Jimenez underscored the importance of taking COVID-19 very seriously, given that, in some cases, children can have serious complications when contracting the virus, and more than 300 children have died of COVID-19 in the United States from a condition called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MISC).
Dr. Jimenez also clarified that various studies show how schools are a low-risk environment when it comes to COVID-19 infections when adequate safety measures are in place, such as mask usage, washing hands, appropriate ventilation, and social distancing.
This blog post (in Spanish) by the WA Department of Health provides more details about the panel, including important information given by the panelists.
Here is the full recording of the Spanish-speaking panel:
And here is the English voiceover of the recording:
A new survey finds 62 percent of Latinos/Hispanics in Washington state are willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine yet remain under-vaccinated. LCH calls for policymakers and public health officials to target communications and accessibility barriers.
University of Washington, Seattle: In a new survey of Sea Mar Community Health Center patients, the Latino Center for Health (LCH) found that most (62%) Latinos/Hispanics believe vaccines are safe and effective at preventing infections and are willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine if available to them, despite having some concerns related to cost, side effects, and effectiveness.
“This data supports that the issue with Latinos not getting the COVID-19 vaccine is not so much due to hesitancy but access. Our policymakers should address these barriers and bring the vaccine to our communities to mitigate the health inequities that Latinos have experienced during the pandemic,” said Dr. Miriana C. Durán, Research Coordinator at the University of Washington School of Public Health.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted Latinos nationally, with mortality nearly six times that of non-Latino whites. In Washington state, the COVID-19 infection rate for Latinos is the second-highest in the nation, accounting for more than a third of COVID-19 cases in the state when Latinos are only 13% of the state’s population. Throughout the pandemic, Latinos have had inadequate access to COVID-19 testing and other resources and are once again lagging behind other groups in the state in accessing approved COVID-19 vaccines, despite being overrepresented in the state’s essential workforce. As of 4/7/2021, Latinos make up only 7% of all individuals 16 years of age and older who have received at least one vaccine dose in WA state.
In light of the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on Latinos in WA, inequities in vaccine access, and the willingness of Latinos to take the vaccine, LCH urges community leaders, policymakers, and public health officials to increase the vaccination rate for Latinos in WA by tailoring communication strategies and public education, improving access, and engaging with local community-based organizations.
This policy brief prepared by LCH contains a list of recommendations aimed at reducing vaccine hesitancy and increasing vaccine acceptance and uptake among Latinos in WA state. Some recommendations include:
“Latinos in WA want to get the COVID-19 vaccine — let’s be empathetic, meet them where they are, help them overcome the obstacles they face, and give them relevant information in the language they understand best,” said Community Health Worker and UW Public Health Practice student Aida Hidalgo MSc, Ph.D.
LCH created the survey and policy brief in partnership with Sea Mar Community Health Centers. Sea Mar’s network of services includes more than 90 medical, dental, and behavioral health clinics in WA state and a wide variety of nutritional, social, and educational services.
Dr. Morales, co-director of the Latino Center for Health, told KUOW that what’s needed to bridge the gap in vaccine inequities among Latinos is to bring the vaccines to where the people are.
“I don’t think the solution is just to open up mass vaccination sites,” he said. “That just doesn’t work.”
Read more about what he and other community members believe DOES work: https://www.kuow.org/stories/as-latinos-wait-for-vaccines-in-seattle-area-they-keep-getting-sick
The UW Population Health Initiative just announced the awarded projects of its 2021 pilot research grant program, one of which was the Bi-directional Research Digital Engagement (BRIDGE) project whose Principal Investigator is Dr. Nathalia Jimenez, Research Director of the Latino Center for Health.
BRIDGE is a new partnership between the Latino Center for Health, the UW Department of Communications’ Center for Communication Difference and Equity (CCDE), UW School of Medicine’s Latinx Health Pathway (LHP) and the Mexican Consulate.
BRIDGE aims to highlight community voices to address current COVID-19 needs and create a sustainable platform for future communication around Latinx health.
You can read more about the project in the abstract below. Congratulations, Nathalia and team!
Project abstract
Responding to the need for sustainable academic-community partnerships to address the burden of COVID-19 in Washington State Latinx communities, we propose developing an innovative bi-cultural, Bi-directional Research Digital Engagement (BRIDGE) Program.
BRIDGE is a new partnership between the Latino Center for Health, the UW Department of Communications’ Center for Communication Difference and Equity (CCDE), UW School of Medicine’s Latinx Health Pathway (LHP) and the Mexican Consulate. BRIDGE aims to highlight community voices to address current COVID-19 needs and create a sustainable platform for future communication around Latinx health.
BRIDGE’s innovative approach leverages infrastructure from the Mexican consulate (Spanish radio programing and Facebook reach 20,000+ followers) and an interdisciplinary network of faculty in LHP, combined with CCDE’s storytelling experience, to create an interactive platform for in-time communication with Latinx communities.
Based on findings from LCH’s collaborative work around COVID-19 with the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network and SeaMar Community Health Centers, and input from our community partner, the Mexican Consulate, BRIDGE proposes a stepwise pilot program that captures community needs through personal stories to understand gaps in care, education and outreach related to COVID-19 (e.g., mental health, school needs for Latinx children). It responds to outlined needs with in-time, culturally appropriate educational content (e.g., vaccinations) from bicultural/bilingual faculty and students to be disseminated through the Mexican Consulate’s outreach network.
Pilot data will inform future COVID-19 research efforts and a grant submission on the evaluation of social media as a tool for disseminating culturally appropriate health information to Latinx immigrant communities.
Investigators
Nathalia Jimenez, Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine
Carmen Gonzalez, Department of Communication
Daniel Cabrera, Department of Medicine
Diana Maria Oliveros, Mexican Consulate in Seattle
Meg Gomez, School of Social Work
Aida Hidalgo, School of Public Health
Mikaela Freundlich Zubiaga, UW Latino Center for Health
Latino Legislative Day took place on March 16 this year, with a packed agenda including researchers, community advocates, elected officials, and even a Mariachi performance.
You can watch all the presentations, keynote speakers, and performances, by following this link: https://fb.watch/4idIbLOxfe/
Crosscut recently published an article on the many barriers that prevent Latinos and other people of color from getting vaccinated. Among the experts they consulted was Dr. Leo Morales, co-director of the Latino Center for Health and assistant dean at the School of Medicine.
You can read the full article here.