The report, a first of its kind national survey, found that among Latinos with or without health insurance, multiple barriers to manage diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and asthma, continue to exist, including transportation to and from health centers, language and cultural issues and feelings of discrimination.
Among the report findings:
• Sixty percent of those who responded were told by a doctor that they have a chronic disease.
• Of those surveyed, 25 percent had visited a hospital emergency room for a chronic related disease in the last 12 months.
• About 75 percent of survey respondents were either overweight or obese.
“The participants of the survey are accessing health care but to manage a chronic disease is a complicated or complex problem that needs more than 15 minutes of interaction with a provider,” said Manuela McDonough, associate director of the Institute for Hispanic Health at the National Council of La Raza. “Our affiliates are doing the best job they can. But they are understaffed and underfunded and can't meet the demands of this growing population.”
Some of those surveyed were patients of the Southern California-based AltaMed, which runs a network of federally funded community clinics in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
The community clinics are geographically located in underserved areas, but income, poverty and cultural beliefs about mammograms, for example, contribute to the disparity gaps, regardless of health insurance coverage.
Among the recommendations made in the report is to encourage and support the work of promotoras, or health promoters in communities that can offer education and find services for those who need helping managing chronic conditions.
Source: Published originally on The Los Angeles Daily News as Chronic disease on the rise among Latino populationby Susan Abram, July 15, 2014.