RECENT ARTICLES

Hispanics Less Likely to Seek Cancer Information

Co-Pay Relief

A New Life for Latinas Affected by Cancer

3 California Schools Recognized for Boosting Latino Performance

Resources for Latino Families Affected by Foreclosure

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Hispanics Less Likely to Seek Cancer Information

83% of Spanish-speaking Hispanics have never even looked for cancer information

Differences in cancer information-seeking and information access have the potential to shape health knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and medical decisions, and may contribute to disparities in health outcomes among disadvantaged populations.

How Can This Inform Your Work?

English fluency is one of many factors that influence Hispanics’ interactions with the U.S. health care system. Spanish-speaking Hispanics may encounter barriers to accessing the abundant supply of primarily English-language cancer-prevention and treatment information. Health practitioners are uniquely positioned to address language barriers in order to promote accurate cancer knowledge and beliefs, as well as early screening and treatment options among Hispanics.

Recommendations:

• Consider using outreach efforts to promote the utilization of accessible, language-appropropriate cancer information resources.
• Consider utilizing interpersonal channels of communication (i.e., healthcare providers, family, and friends) for outreach to Hispanics.
• Assess whether the Internet is an appropriate channel to reach your target audience. (When it comes to Internet usage, only 21% of the Spanish-speaking population report going online as compared with 66% of non-Hispanics and 58% of English-speaking Hispanics).

Learn more about the cancer-seeking behavior study results here

For more information call the NCI Cancer Information Service at 1-800-422-6237. Order NCI Cancer publications at https://cissecure.nci.nih.gov/ncipubs/

Co-Pay Relief

Washington, DC - Serious illness can be a financial catastrophe, even for patients with health insurance. Recognizing this need, the Patient Advocate Foundation has a program called Co-pay Relief (CPR), a patient assistance program, designed to help insured patients with certain life-threatening or debilitating diseases cope with the significant out-of-pocket costs associated with their treatments.

The program fills a critical gap for many insured patients. The law creates what many refer to as a coverage gap or a zone of income and expenses where patients are not covered. Patients with qualifying conditions will be able to turn to the Patient Advocate Foundation’s CPR program to help them with significant co-pay burdens as they pass through the coverage gap phase of the benefit.

Financial crisis as a result of illness is not unusual. A recent study conducted by the Harvard Medical School indicated that about half of all personal bankruptcies stem from medical causes among people who had health insurance. “I have health insurance, so when I was diagnosed with cancer, of course I thought my biggest worry was my illness. But the treatments were so expensive, and I found that I just couldn’t manage the co-pays,” says June Dalton, a lung cancer patient from Santa Maria, California. Ms. Dalton subsequently enrolled in the pilot phase of the CPR program and received direct assistance in paying for her treatment co-pays.

The Patient Advocate Foundation encourages patients diagnosed with one of the illnesses covered by the program to apply for assistance if they are having difficulties paying for their treatment co-pays. Some indications that suggest someone should apply are forgoing treatment because of costs, skipping payments on the mortgage or utility bills, or having difficulty buying groceries because of treatment costs.

About the Patient Advocate Foundation
Patient Advocate Foundation is a national non-profit organization that seeks to safeguard patients through effective mediation, assuring access to care, maintenance of employment and preservation of their financial stability. Patient Advocate Foundation serves as an active liaison between the patient and their insurer, employer, and/or creditors to resolve debt crisis matters related to their diagnosis with the help of doctors, healthcare attorneys and a case manager.

For more information about Patient Advocate Foundation, please call 1-800-532-5274 or visit their website at www.patientadvocate.org. For Co-pay Relief information, call 1-866-512-3861.

A New Life for Latinas Affected by Cancer

While there are many organizations that offer cancer prevention services and participate in cancer prevention campaigns, organizations serving Latina women who have been diagnosed with cancer are few and far between.

When Nueva Vida (New Life) was founded in 1996, it was the only organization in the greater Washington DC metropolitan area to provide support services specifically to Latinas affected by cancer. Many Latinas were becoming lost in the health systems, and only could find limited information about cancer in Spanish. Service providers had difficulty understanding the unique cultural and linguistic challenges that Latina women faced, and rates of early detection of cancer among Latinas were dismally low.

Latina women were slower than other women to get screened for cancer due to lack of information, lack of health insurance, language barriers, and a generalized sense of intimidation by the complex health systems in the United States.

Nueva Vida was formed by a group of Hispanic professionals who were cancer survivors themselves. Intimately aware of the challenges faced by Latina women, they began providing services to increase access to diagnostic, treatment and counseling services. They built partnerships with hospitals, health clinics, and private doctors in the region, and aligned themselves with research and social service organizations that were able to provide discounted or free services to women without health insurance.

Today Nueva Vida offers a range of services including support groups for women affected by cancer, groups for caregivers, and cancer survivors. Their team of 6 certified counselors provides case management and one-on-one counseling services. They conduct community outreach campaigns and organize cancer screening tests for groups of Latina women who otherwise would not get screened. Nueva Vida’s team seeks out the appropriate treatment & payment options for women, and helps them navigate the complex health systems. When women need moral support, help with translation, or transportation to their doctor’s appointments, Nueva Vida personnel or volunteers are available to accompany them.

All services provided by Nueva Vida are completely free of charge, thanks to the organization’s many donors which include private foundations and some international organizations.

In 2008 Nueva Vida helped some 350 Latina women in the DC metropolitan area get screened for cancer, and provided support services to 100 Latina women diagnosed with cancer. As many as 70% of the women who seek help at Nueva Vida speak no English and many would be unable to receive the care they need were it not for the advocacy, support and referrals provided by the organization.

Larisa Caicedo, Nueva Vida’s Executive Director, cites the uniquely Latino environment offered by Nueva Vida as one of the organization’s greatest strengths. Women can receive the information and support they need in Spanish from other women just like them—who understand the unique cultural issues that they might be facing—in an environment of trust and mutual respect.

Ms. Caicedo shares this advice with other service providers: “Collaboration is the most important. Reinventing the wheel doesn’t work. We need to build partnerships to work with specialized organizations, and make sure that we address the community from a culturally-sensitive perspective.”

For more information about Nueva Vida, visit their website at www.nueva-vida.org or send an email to Show email address.

3 California Schools Recognized for Boosting Latino Performance

By Carla Rivera, LA Times

LOS ANGELES– Three public schools in California led the nation in helping Latino students outperform their counterparts in other states on Advanced Placement exams in Spanish language, Spanish literature and world history, according to a report released Wednesday by the College Board.

Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach was cited as the public school with the largest number of Latino students from the class of 2008 earning a 3 or better in AP world history. Exams are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, and many colleges and universities give students course credit for scores of 3 or higher. Advanced Placement courses offer college-level material in a variety of subjects.

Latino students at Fontana High School outpaced their peers on the AP Spanish-language exam, and San Ysidro High School in San Diego had the most Latino students who succeeded on the AP Spanish literature exam.

Overall, 30.8% of California students in the class of 2008 took at least one AP exam during high school, compared with 25% nationwide. More than 20% of California students received a 3, 4 or 5 on at least one exam, ranking California sixth in the nation. Maryland ranked first, with 23.4% of its students achieving a 3 or better.

Miguel Solorio, a 2008 graduate of Wilson High who earned a 5 on the AP world history exam, said the courses were a good steppingstone to his studies at Cal State Long Beach. Solorio took nine AP courses and earned enough credits to place him as a junior in only his second semester in college.

“It’s a very good foundation of information if you take them seriously,” said Solorio, a history major. “I’m taking all upper-division classes, and in my Latin American nation class, for example, I already know about decolonization because of the AP world history class I took.”

One of the key criticisms of the AP program is that school districts in poor, urban areas have far fewer offerings than more affluent districts. Some private schools have dropped AP classes, creating similar courses instead that officials say are more challenging and less dependent on rote learning. But the College Board cites research that AP participants have better college grades and are much more likely to earn a college degree in four years.

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Source: LA Times

Resources for Latino Families Affected by Foreclosure

Shortly before the foreclosure crisis, Latinos were accumulating wealth primarily through home ownership. Between 1996 and 2006, Latino expenditures on mortgage interest and charges had increased by 216%, bringing Hispanics and Non-Hispanics close to financial parity.

When the foreclosure crisis hit, it hit Latino communities harder.

According to the Center for Responsible Lending, in 2004 Latinos were between 29% and 142% more likely than Whites to receive a higher-rate loan. Predatory lenders advertising in Spanish then capitalized on language barriers in complex negotiation processes, and as ACORN reports, steered one- third to one-half of subprime borrowers to higher cost loans, despite the availability of better loan options.

Predatory lenders held a larger share of the mortgage market in predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods than in non-minority neighborhoods. A collaborative study released by the Woodstock Institute showed that high-risk lenders held 18.8% of the market share in neighborhoods that were comprised of over 80% minority population and only 5.3% in neighborhoods where minorities were less than 10% of the population.

These practices led to the foreclosure crisis and translate into Latino borrowers losing between $76 billion and $98 billion on mortgages made between 2000 and 2008 according to United for a Fair Economy. Alongside these losses, ACORN predicts an additional $32 billion lost due to falling property values. This is devastating to the financial well-being of the Latino community.

The rental market has also been affected by the foreclosures, leaving many renters evicted on short notice. This, in turn, increases rates of Latinos living in overcrowded conditions, the secondary symptoms of which include: homelessness, dependence on public services, and neighborhood conflict.

To read more about how the foreclosure crisis is affecting Latino communities, visit the Latinos United website or read their publication on Latinos and foreclosure.

Resources for Families Facing Foreclosure

A number of resources exist to help families facing foreclosure navigate the complex mortage systems and legislation.  The LSC Resource Information site offers a series of foreclosure resources to help legal aid services address issues related to home ownership; renter issues; building a home foreclosure mitigation project and others.  It also includes community legal education resources, pro-bono projects, and other resources that service providers can refer clients to.  Visit LRI’s Foreclosure Resources page for these and other resources.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco offers several tools for service providers seeking to mitigate the impact of home foreclosures, including a four-step toolkit. 

An excellent resource for families who are thinking about purchasing a home, is Freddie Mac’s “Don’t Borrow Trouble” website which offers tips to help families avoid predatory lending practices.