Santa Clara County’s Latino inhabitants has confronted devastating well being disparities lately, with Latino residents experiencing increased charges of gun violence, weight problems and deaths from diabetes and coronary heart illness than the county averages, based on a brand new report.
For Santa Clara County Supervisor Sylvia Arenas — the highest-ranking Latina elected official within the county — the county’s just lately launched Latino Well being Evaluation is “clear proof and validation of the public health crisis our community has been bearing.”
“Here in this county we are disproportionately impacted by violence, poverty, overcrowded housing, mental health challenges and systemic barriers,” Arenas stated at a press convention on Monday morning. “And too often, our communities are invisible in the data and forgotten in the funding.”
Latinos make up one in 4 residents in Santa Clara County — or roughly 25% of the inhabitants — and infrequently face worse well being outcomes than their white and Asian counterparts, all whereas incomes decrease wages on common and having decrease charges of medical health insurance.
Between 2017 and 2021, 58% of nonfatal emergency division visits associated to firearms within the county have been Latino residents. Between 2019 and 2023, 48% of murder victims have been Latino.
88% of Latinos ages 19 to 64 had medical health insurance between 2017 and 2021, in comparison with 94% of all county residents in that age group. Practically half of the Latino adults who delayed medical care previously 12 months did so due to the associated fee or the shortage of insurance coverage in comparison with 34% countywide, the report discovered.
The county’s Latino inhabitants is essentially concentrated in East San Jose — the place in 2023, the density of tobacco retailers was greater than double the remainder of the county — and South County, the place the gap residents have to journey to get to a grocery retailer is sort of 3 times farther than it’s for different county residents.
The 157-page well being evaluation will probably be mentioned by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday afternoon, and county officers have beneficial responding to the leads to a number of methods — together with making a cultural facility in South County for Latino residents, rising investments in early childhood applications like FIRST 5 and enhancing current well being care service.
Arenas stated she plans to suggest some further concepts of her personal, together with the creation of a promotoras/neighborhood well being employee program in East San Jose and South County.
The report offers an intensive take a look at points impacting the Latino neighborhood from maternal care and early training to housing, psychological well being and entry to well being care.
San Jose Councilmember Peter Ortiz, who represents East San Jose on the Metropolis Council, stated that the households he serves “are profoundly impacted by challenges deeply rooted in discrimination, disinvestment” and poverty.
The report, he stated, “allows us to connect living with these challenges to direct, negative impacts” on bodily and psychological well being and reveals a “cycle of poverty where our children grow up without the sufficient resources they need to be successful.”
The report discovered that fewer Latino college students are prepared for kindergarten, meet third-grade math proficiency requirements, graduate highschool and full a bachelors diploma in contrast with county residents general.
Santa Clara County Government James Williams stated that the information within the report “should cause extraordinary alarm for every resident” within the county.
“As a county organization, we’re the safety net service provider for the most vulnerable in our community, and that emphatically includes, as the data in this report makes clear, our Latino community,” he stated. “But it’s not just on the part of our county organization, which can and must act with vigor and urgency, but every resident in Santa Clara County should similarly be moved with urgency and vigor to ensure that our entire community is supported for success in this special place that we call home.”
Regardless of the quite a few and typically alarming points revealed within the report, neighborhood leaders stated it’s a constructive step that may result in options.
“This report brings us hope,” stated Dolores Alvarado, who’s the CEO of Group Well being Partnership and labored on the report. “The Latino Health Assessment report recommends programming that will result in fair treatment of our residents… better education for children and a more comprehensive health care system that builds on the current one.”
