latino lingo

Story in the AP carried by the Hartford Courant today entitled, "Study: Hispanic Health Down
Immigrants Suffer Obesity, Diabetes" outlines more bad news for Hispanic health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study says the longer Hispanics are here, the more likely they are to become obese or to develop diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Worse, Hispanics born here have higher rates of those illnesses.

Complicating matters is that Hispanic immigrants are among those least likely to have health insurance.

Here are some sobering statistics from the study:
-- 22 percent of Hispanics who have been in the country more than five years are obese, compared with 16.1 percent who have been here for less than five.
-- High blood pressure climbs from 13.4 percent for newer arrivals to 19.8 percent for those here longer.
-- As they stay longer than five years, diabetes rates rise from 6.9 percent to 7.5 percent and heart disease increases from 3.5 percent to 5.4 percent.
-- Among Hispanics born in this country, 29.8 percent are obese, 24.5 percent report high blood pressure, 10.8 percent are diabetic and 7.6 percent have heart disease. Among the native-born U.S. population overall, 22.9 percent are obese, 24.3 percent have high blood pressure, 6.1 percent are diabetic and 7.6 percent have heart disease.

Thanks to Carol Pompano from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Connecticut for forwarding this along to me.

Mexican President Vicente Fox is being criticized by some for not responding sooner to the mining tragedy in Coahuila, Mexico. Specifically, he didn't visit the mine or families who kept a vigil praying for a miracle. Unfortunately, they were all pronounced dead on Saturday.

There's also an accusation, which Fox's office disputes I should point ou, that the government pressured local officials not to tell families sooner that the miners likely had died instantly. There's a Reuter's story on it that appeared in the Washington Post.

While it's a tough issue for government leaders on how to respond when there's a tragedy, the one main principle in crisis communication is that perception equals reality. If the peopleperceived he didn't do enough, then he didn't do enough.

Russian President Vladamir Putin was also harshly criticized when the Kursk submarine sunk killing its crew. The difference, however, is that Putin was on vacation and stayed on vacation during the tragedy. Worse, he refused help of other countries until it was way too late.

Another main principal in crisis communication is that the first step should be empathy. It looks like his office did do that by expressing condolences. I found a press release on the Mexican government site. However, it's dated February 26.

I'm not here to judge President Fox's response one way or another. Only to say that from a public relations perspective he is suffering a major hit for not adhering to basic crisis communication principles.

Scripps Howard News Service reports that Hispanic food - particularly Mexican - is threatening to displace Italian and Chinese food as the food of choice.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says Americans are eating four times more Mexican food than they ate 20 years ago, and sales of salsa are higher than ketchup sales.

In the article, Roberto Quinones, head of the American Tortilla Industry Association (jeez there's an association for anything, huh?), estimates tortillas sales topped $6 billion in 2004.

Toyota tops the list of makes that are top of mind among Hispanic Americans looking to the car buying market according to the latest findings from GfK Hispanic OmniTel™ and reported on Multicultural Marketing.

Further, the survey also found that when looking to purchase a car, fuel efficiency is an important factor:
-- 80% of Hispanic respondents indicated they are likely to purchase a smaller-sized car with better fuel economy in the wake of recent gasoline price increases.
-- This is higher than the general population (70%).