RECENT ARTICLES

Help Prevent Childhood Influenza

Acceso Hispano Presentation and Training

Strategies for Immigrant Integration

Childhood Obesity

The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades

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Help Prevent Childhood Influenza

As a service provider working with Hispanic communities, you play a key role in reaching Spanish-speaking parents, caregivers and youth about the benefits of annual influenza (flu) vaccination. The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases’ (NFID) Childhood Influenza Immunization Coalition has created a Spanish-language website PrevengaLaGripeInfantil.org where you can access free educational materials to engage Hispanic families in vaccination efforts this influenza season.

Influenza hospitalizes thousands of children each year and some even die from it. Safe and effective vaccines are available to protect kids from influenza. The CDC recommends vaccination for every child 6 months to 18 years of age. But too few kids get vaccinated. One reason is that vaccination efforts stop too soon.

Flu season occurs from about October to May in the US, with more than half of all cases - 30 million or more in some seasons - reported after January. However, vaccination efforts drop off after November. Since it takes only about two weeks to develop immunity after vaccination, the value of getting vaccinated past November is clear. By continuing to vaccinate, we can help prevent this disease and keep more kids and families healthy.

NFID established the Coalition, which includes more than 25 of the nation’s leading health organizations, to inform and educate more families and health care providers about the benefits of influenza vaccination. The Coalition calls on parents to learn more about influenza and protect their families against influenza by getting them vaccinated every year.

Free Spanish-language flu vaccination educational materials are available for download at PrevengaLaGripeInfantil.org/resources. You can print, display and share these materials with Hispanic families and children you serve. Simply place your mouse pointer over the resources listed below (flyer, brochure, banner ad, etc) and click to see and print the materials. Here are a few ideas of how you can inform your local Hispanic community:

Flyer and Print Display -Print multiple copies for posting on walls with high visibility
(bathroom stalls, etc)

Brochure/Pamphlet -Print 1-2 copies for leaving in your waiting room area, foyer,
literature collections

Fact Sheets & FAQs -Inform your staff about influenza and the importance of flu
vaccination

Digital Banner Ad -Feature on your website

Note: English-language materials are available at PreventChildhoodInfluenza.org.

National Influenza Vaccination Week (NIVW) is December 8-12; Children’s Flu Vaccination Day is December 9. You can make a difference by promoting influenza vaccination among Latino families now, through NIVW and beyond the New Year. Many health care professionals administer the vaccine. Local hospitals, health clinics, retail stores and even some employers may also hold vaccination clinics. To find a clinic, visit FluClinicLocator.org.

Acceso Hispano Presentation and Training

December 11, 2008

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December 12, 2008

Acceso Hispano Presentation and Training

Strategies for Immigrant Integration

A recent report entitled “Investing in Our Communities: Strategies for Immigrant Integration” published by the association Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR), offers six strategic pathways through which immigrants and the receiving community can work together to provide resources and opportunities to leverage the human capital that immigrants bring: Communitywide planning; Language and education; Health, well-being, and economic mobility; Equal treatment and opportunity; Social and cultural interaction; and Civic participation and citizenship.

The report details how these pathways serve both as a tool for facilitating integration and as a means
to assess whether integration is taking place successfully. They interact dynamically, each with the power to reinforce or weaken progress in the other areas. For example, language and education are highly correlated with economic mobility but are also a determining factor in health care access, citizenship and civic participation, and interaction with native-born residents.

Built on extensive research and interviews with foundation, community, business, and government leaders, this multimedia toolkit intends to better inform the development of program, policy, and grantmaking strategies that promote immigrant integration. It also aims to help civil society understand the importance of supporting efforts that incorporate newcomers into the fabric of our society.

Download full report

Childhood Obesity

Over the past 30 years the share of children in the United States who are considered overweight or obese in the has doubled from 15 percent in the 1970s to nearly 30 percent today. And the share of children who are considered obese has tripled, according to a 2006 study by Princeton University and the Brookings Institution, entitled “The Future of Children.”

The problem of childhood obesity disproportionately affects minority and low-income children, due to a wide variety of factors ranging from neighborhood safety issues to the accessibility of health foods. While the epidemic of childhood obesity has received much attention, there have been few conclusive studies to demonstrate which policies or programs will most effectively combat childhood obesity.

According to the report, it is widely attributed to various factors including “increases in television and computer game use that have led to a new generation of “couch potatoes”; the explosive proliferation of fast-food restaurants, many of which market their products to children through media campaigns that tout tie-ins to children’s movies and TV shows; increases in sugary and fat-laden foods displayed at children’s eye level in supermarkets and advertised on TV; schools that offer children junk food and soda while scaling back physical education classes and recess; working parents who are unable to find the time or energy to cook nutritious meals or supervise outdoor playtime; the exodus of grocery stores from urban centers, sharply reducing access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables; and suburban sprawl and urban crime, both of which keep children away from outdoor activities. The problem is not the lack of explanations for the increase in childhood obesity, but the abundance of them.”

The report emphasizes that childhood obesity is “best viewed as a societal problem reflecting the interactive influences of environment, biology, and behavior, rather than as an individual medical illness” and offers recommendations for parents, school administrators, and childcare specialists as to how to address the issue.

For more details,

download the full report.

The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades

The National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health recently published a study funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that highlights the importance of addressing chronic absence in kindergarten and primary school, to improve educational outcomes in the later grades.

According to the report’s authors, “At the core of school improvement and education reform is an assumption so widely understood that it is rarely invoked: students have to be present and engaged in order to learn. That is why the discovery that thousands of our youngest students are academically at-risk because of extended absences when they first embark upon their school careers is as remarkable as it is consequential.”

They continue with a call to action for all teachers and parents: “Schools and communities have a choice: we can work together early on to ensure families get their children to class consistently or we can pay later for failing to intervene before problems are more difficult and costly to ameliorate.”

“…During the early elementary years, children are gaining basic social and academic skills critical to ongoing academic success. Unless students attain these essential skills by third grade, they require extra help to catch up and are at grave risk for eventually dropping out of school.”

Download full report