The June 1, 2021 session of Duke Medicine LEADS featured a presentation by Rosa M. Gonzalez-Guarda, PhD, MPH, CPH, RN, FAAN, on, "Syndemic and Community Engaged Approaches to Promoting Health Equity Among Latinx Communities."
Here are pearls and takeaways from the session:
- High acculturating stress in the Latinx community has been associated with poorer mental and physical health outcomes. However, there are factors that contribute to resilience including familism, ethnic pride, social support, and optimism in reaching the “American Dream”.
- Using the Syndemic Approach identifies the underlying causes of recurring epidemics that cluster in marginalized groups, and can be used to develop models for understanding underlying social and structural factors that cause health outcomes.
- “Becoming American” in and of itself is not a risk factor for poor health outcomes in the Latinx immigrant population, but losing the Latinx identity can affect health outcomes in a negative way.
- COVID-19 disproportionally affected the Durham Latinx community, with this community being 3x more likely to have COVID-19. This is due to a number of factors including structural and social issues. Fear is a common uniting emotion in the Latinx community as it pertains to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Latin-19 is a multi-sector organization of over 500 members founded by clinicians at Duke to address health disparities in the Latinx community. Those interested in joining can visit the Latin-19 website.
Duke Medicine Learning, Education, and Discussion Series (LEADS) takes place each Tuesday at 12 p.m. Learn more and see schedule of upcoming sessions.
