http://www.latinoleaders.com/articulos.php?id_sec=1&id_art=295
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The days Dr. David Hayes-Bautista is not traveling, he wakes up at five a.m. Still at home, he immediately starts looking at new data and tries to figure out the patterns. 'What are this numbers trying to tell me?' he asks. In the quiet of an early morning, when the phones aren't ringing, statistics and percentages are transformed into the compelling story of the struggle of the Latino community in this country. A Legacy Begins "A Passionate nerd" is how Hayes-Bautista describes his data-driven nature. His interest in numbers drove him to study engineering, but he soon found a fascination for the medical field and was about to make the transition to the Medical Center at Berkeley for his graduate studies when a definitive new chapter in his life began. "In It was a challenge, to say the least, but at 25 years of age, a budget of $240 and a group of volunteer doctors, community activists and students, Hayes-Bautista opened up the doors of "There were a million reasons why we should have failed, but because we didn't know them, we succeeded", he asserts. "At the time, there were programs that could have provided the funds we needed – this was during the days of the war on poverty – but we were very pure and idealistic and didn't want to become dependent on federal funds because they were too political. "We had seen other programs fail and wanted something that the community could control, so we decided not to accept the money. People thought we were crazy, but we had big dreams and a lot of energy, so we made it work." County funding, the available insurance funds and a lot of creativity allowed for growth. Now in its 35th year of operations, " "It was my experience with The perfect opportunity to continue his research came when in 1986 he was made an offer to head the Today, Hayes-Bautista is internationally recognized for his research on the culture and health of Latinos, focusing on the dynamics and processes of the health status of this segment of the population. The Importance of Numbers "Because of my initial training as an engineer, I am a very data driven person, so during the days of "President Nixon mandated the use of the term Hispanic in Federal records in 1973, but it took years to actually implement this principle. The 1980 census was the first to identify Hispanics officially and it wasn't until the mid eighties that most states started to comply with their records, so we had very limited information." Further research led to a discovery that would change his life. "At that time, we were developing the first Latino health statistics, and I was completely unprepared for what we were about to discover. It was the spring of 1989 when the first epidemiological data became available, and it contradicted every single model I had been taught. "Normally, what we expect is a direct correlation between higher risk factors like lower income, education and less access to healthcare with a higher rate of adverse health outcomes such as premature death, heart attack, cancer, stroke and infant mortality. That was the expectation when we began to study Latino health, but until then we had no data. "Once we got the information, we discovered the paradox that even though Latinos had fewer access to healthcare, they also had 35% fewer heart attacks, 43% fewer cancers, 45% fewer strokes, 5 years longer life expectancy and less infant mortality… At first I thought that there were problems with the data, but Dr. Martínez, a colleague of mine in "For some reason, Latinos confound all the theoretical models on health, and it was important to find out why, so in 1992 I established the Center for Latino Health and Culture, because culture is the factor that seems to override income and education when it comes to Latino health. We need to understand what about this culture needs to be preserved, because if everyone in the A Complex Conundrum Continuing with his research has been difficult. There is a lack of federal funding, but local, state and private support has allowed him to persevere. It is the perceptual challenge, however, that has been the most difficult to overcome. "We are still largely considered as illegal immigrants, so it's very hard to get things done on a research basis, but even worse on a program or policy basis. When in 2006 "But they barred the coverage for that 92% because of concern for the legal status of that one or two percent. Cleary, we have departed from rationality. I am not a politician or a debater, so the best that I can do is provide data, and hope it will be considered before other decisions are made, because I firmly believe in social justice and in health in the broadest sense: social, cultural and economical, and to be able to obtain it for our community we need to prove that America has Latino roots, that Latinos have never been strangers and that we have been contributing to American culture ever since July 4, 1776 during the American war for independence. "We need to fight this perception that Latinos are strangers and foreigners and that we have no business being here, because we have helped create American history, and that is part of what we are trying to achieve with our Historic Epidemiological Demography, we are providing irrefutable facts. I am now working on a detailed demographic study from the early settlements in Propelling Talent into the Future The Latino physician shortage is another issue. In addition to his already busy schedule, Hayes-Bautista has other interests that he somehow finds the time to address. He is also the director of the UCLA/Drew Center of Excellence for Minority Medical Education, which is dedicated to increasing the number of minority physicians in clinical and academic careers. "In 2000, we discovered that while Latinos represented about 33% of the total population, they were only 4% of them in the physician population. Since then, the Latino population has grown, but the number of Latino Physicians shrunk. I am trying to encourage more Latinos to enter this field through pipeline programs like Medicos Para el Pueblo. We have course work, summer workshops and experiential events among other programs to encourage students to go into the field of academic medicine, so that they will continue doing research.. Because we are studying very complicated issues and I feel like I'm just beginning to understand things, so it is clear that it will be up to the next generation to find the answers". With a daughter who is now a legislative fellow in | |||||||||||||||
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Education for Liberation!
Peter S. Lopez aka: Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/THIRD-WORLD-NEWS/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CASA-12-Steps-Program/
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