National Council of La Raza: Topics

Health and Family Support

Health and Family Support Related Content Related Publications (81) Related News Items (181) Related Events (4) Related FAQs (3) Related Viewpoints (58)

While Latinos are affected by a wide range of risk factors and diseases, nearly every health disparity they experience could be prevented or more effectively managed given timely access to health care. Unfortunately, a number of barriers — including a widespread lack of health insurance and an inadequate supply of language services — currently operate at multiple levels within the health care system to prevent Latinos from gaining access to quality care.

NCLR seeks to eliminate the incidence, burden, and impact of health and environmental problems in Latinos, and seeks tangible improvements in Latinos' access to health coverage, and high-quality, culturally-competent health care. NCLR uses a two-tiered system to address the health concerns of the Latino community.

In NCLR’s Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation, we work through policy analysis and advocacy for new federal policies to ensure equitable health care for those who work and live in the United States. Current laws are inadequate in providing options that allow Latinos to access appropriate health care. In addition, despite immigrants’ contributions to this country, they are disproportionately shut out of many of our nation’s public health programs. NCLR collaborates with a variety of organizations — state, local, and national — to promote reform in our nation’s health care systems.

NCLR’s Institute for Hispanic Health (IHH) works through close partnership with NCLR affiliates, government agencies, private funders, and other Latino-serving organizations to deliver science-based, linguistically appropriate, and high-quality health interventions. IHH combines support, through technical collaboration of local and regional health promotion and disease prevention activities, with efforts to increase the understanding of, and appreciation for, effective and culturally-competent strategies at the national level through broad dissemination. Priority is given to those health and environmental conditions that not only disproportionately affect Latinos from an epidemiological perspective, but that also have an impact on the community’s overall well-being.

Related Programs

Institute for Hispanic Health: Developing innovative and successful projects in the areas of diabetes, HIV/AIDS, cervical and breast cancer, cardiovascular diseases, medicare, genetics, cholesterol, stroke, Alzheimer's, asthma, and nutrition and exercise.
Neurological Disorders and Stroke: The National Council of La Raza’s Institute for Hispanic Health (NCLR/IHH) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have partnered on a pilot project to educate Latinos in the United States about stroke.
The NCLR/CSULB Center for Latino Community Health, Evaluation, and Leadership Training: Working to support health promotion and disease prevention programs in underserved Latino communities nationwide.
Hispanic Health Data: Showing that Hispanics suffer disproportionately from most of the leading health issues when compared to non-Hispanic Whites.
KIDS COUNT - Puerto Rico: The KIDS COUNT Puerto Rico project is an effort to address the information gap in order to improve the health, safety, education, economic security, and development of Puerto Rico's children. By providing policy-makers and citizens with benchmarks of child well-being, KIDS COUNT Puerto Rico seeks to enrich local and national discussions of ways to secure better futures for all our children.
Affiliate Awards Program: The Affiliate Member Services (AMS) administers annually two separate awards for NCLR Affiliates: the Family Strengthening Awards and the Affiliate of the Year Award.

Related Policies

Federal Policies

Health Care Disparities: Latinos are overwhelmingly disconnected from the health care system. As the ethnic group with the highest uninsurance rates in the country, Latinos are often deterred from accessing essential health care services.
Latino Children’s Health: Children’s well-being is largely hinged on their ability to stay healthy. Latino children are among those most at risk for health problems because of poor access to health coverage and affordable health care services. In fact, Latino children represent two-fifths of the uninsured children in the U.S. and are more than twice as likely to be determined in fair or poor health by their parents.
Healthy Foods, Healthy Families: Latino families face disproportionately high rates of hunger, food insecurity, and obesity. Access to nutritious food is key in addressing these conditions.
Access to Health Insurance: Latinos have the highest uninsurance rate in the country. Access to employer-based health care coverage and public insurance programs is lower for Latinos than for the members of other ethnic populations.
Immigrant Health and Family Support Issues: Immigrant access to health care is severely limited by current law and the high cost of private insurance.
Language Access in Health Care Settings: Access to culturally-competent language services in health care settings continues to be an issue for the Latino community. Because language barriers impact quality of health care, it is becoming increasingly important to develop programs that provide interpreter services and access to materials and interpreters in a person’s preferred language.

State Policies

California: Human Services: NCLR supports programs that provide human services to underprivileged individuals and children.
California: Health Care: NCLR supports policies that make health care more accessible and increase eligibility in the Latino community.