Health and education news about Latinos from campuses on the campaign trail

Before I decided to add the passage from Nate Silver to The importance of the Latino vote from Purdue University and Nate Silver, I was going to conclude the entry with the following research findings about Latinos from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Change in the weather edition). Since I'm an environmentalist and will recycle, especially if I didn't get to use it the first time, here they are.

The research, led by College of Social Work Professor and Associate Dean Amy L. Ai, evaluated the physical and behavioral health, as well as the health care service usage, of all three major Latino subgroups in the United States.

Florida State University: Study reveals differences in overall health of Latino-American subgroups
Jeffery Seay
10/02/2012 4:33 pm

Despite a shared Latino heritage, there are significant differences in the overall health and the use of health care services among Cuban-Americans, Mexican-Americans and Puerto Rican-Americans — even between men and women in the same subgroup — according to two recently published studies by Florida State University researchers.

The authors, led by College of Social Work Professor and Associate Dean Amy L. Ai, evaluated the physical and behavioral health, as well as the health care service usage, of all three major Latino subgroups in the United States. Collectively, these have been the fastest-growing ethnic minority in recent decades and are today the nation’s largest ethnic minority, comprising more than 15 percent of the nation’s population, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. The source of the studies’ data was the National Latino and Asian-American Study, the first nationally representative study of Latino-Americans.

“Within Latino groups, cross-subcultural differences may contribute to the different patterns in both physical and mental health,” Ai said. “There are interesting pattern differences between men and women. The patterns for Latino men are rather uniform, with Puerto Rican-Americans dominating most chronic conditions and behavorial health issues. The patterns for Latino women are more diverse in terms of overall health.”

University of Kentucky: UK Researchers Find Teachers, School Climate Key to Latino Immigrants’ Academic Success
Oct. 3, 2012

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A new study by researchers at the University of Kentucky found that teachers and schools that value diversity have a big impact on the academic experiences of Latino immigrant children living in predominantly White communities. The study appears in a special section of the September/October 2012 issue of Child Development on children from immigrant families.

The researchers discovered that children who had a teacher who valued diversity felt more positively about their ethnicity than children who had a teacher who felt uncomfortable with diversity.

“This is important because feeling positively about their ethnicity was associated with children valuing school more, enjoying school more, feeling like they belonged at school more and getting better grades,” said Christia Spears Brown, associate professor in the UK Department of Psychology at the University of Kentucky, who led the study.

Teachers who valued diversity also seemed to establish classroom norms that discouraged peers from teasing others because of their ethnicity.

Much more about the U.S.'s fastest growing ethnicity, at least in terms of absolute numbers,* at the links in the subject lines.

*In terms of percentage increase, Asian-Americans are the U.S.'s fastest growing racial or ethnic group.