EthnicMajority

(Huffington Post) Latino children are 60% more at risk for asthma than white non-Latino kids. Because I am Latina, I've become even more interested in the topic and what I can do to create awareness.

Even though my 5-year-old daughter was diagnosed with asthma two years ago and I've done my share of research on the topic, I don't consider myself an expert. Thanks to my involvement with the Moms Clean Air Force – a group of moms fighting for clean air, I've learned a lot about how this disease affects Latino children in particular.

We've been lucky that my daughter has never had a full-blown asthma attack and the majority of her problems now stem from colds that usually have to be treated a bit more aggressively so they don't become a more serious ailment.

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(CNN) Alexandra Dixon was born with a hole in her lower back, exposing her spinal cord, a condition called spina bifida. Within 48 hours, she had two surgeries to begin correcting her birth defect: One to close the hole and another to insert a cerebral shunt – a tube moving excess fluid from her head to prevent excessive pressure on the brain. In her 29 years, Dixon has had 18 surgeries to correct this birth defect – a type of neural tube defect (NTD), which can kill many infants and put others in wheelchairs for life.

Each year about 3,000 babies are born with neural tube defects in the United States, including the one Dixon had, and the highest rates are found among Hispanics compared to other racial or ethnic groups.

So the March of Dimes is calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow food producers to fortify corn masa flour with the B vitamin folic acid, which “could prevent more serious birth defects of the brain and spine in the Hispanic community,” according to a March of Dimes commentary published in the American Journal of Public Health.

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In watching the television coverage of the staged protests at town hall meetings to discuss healthcare reform, it occurred to me that there are some noticeable faces missing from these mobs – those of people of color. While this demographic could be mistaken for the Republican party, who openly encouraged turning public discussion forums into angry shouting matches, I can’t help but think of the racial overtones in this debate (or lack thereof).

Many of the protesters expressed a common theme about why they are opposing healthcare reform. Almost all of these folks already have health insurance, private or public (Medicare), and it appears their main concern is that they will be footing the bill for covering the 50 million people who don’t.

So who are the uninsured? According to the Centers for Disease Control, 14.8% of the population is uninsured, including 19.8% of the working age adults (age 18-64). Amongst the caucasian population, only 10.5% are uninsured. This compares to 33.1% of Hispanics, 16.0% of Blacks, and 13.3% of Asians. Clearly people of color represent a disproportionately high percentage of the uninsured.

What the protesters fail to realize is that the insured bear the cost of treating the uninsured, which is substantial since they are getting treated by hospital ERs instead of neighborhood doctors. These costs are passed on to the insured in the form of increased premiums. So if you are already paying for the uninsured, wouldn’t you rather get a better bang for the buck by increasing competition amongst insurance carriers and stop using hospital ERs to treat minor illnesses?

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