Policy Briefs
Latine and Indigenous Mental Health Policy Factsheet in conjunction with our SanaMente Community Education and Outreach Social Media Campaign.
The SanaMente campaign is designed to empower communities by raising awareness, reducing stigma, and introducing resources related to Latine and Indigenous mental health.
This campaign is designed by and for community, the word sanamente means healthily, but when broken down sana means to heal, mente means mind; together, they create a play on words and references a popular Spanish-language song that aims to create a meaningful connection with our Latine & Indigenous community.
Through SanaMente, we’re advancing the conversation around the systems transformation and health equity policy changes that are needed to ensure culturally and linguistically responsive mental health care for Latine and Indigenous families and individuals.
We’re kicking off our campaign by sharing our new Latine and Indigenous Mental Health Policy Factsheet in conjunction with our SanaMente Community Education and Outreach Social Media Campaign.
- Almost half of Latine adult participants felt they were unable to access appropriate mental care due to inadequate mental health literacy, or ability and skills to seek the type of mental healthcare that they need.
Current unmet needs have led to 6 out of 10 Latine adults experiencing serious or moderate psychological distress.
17% of Latine adults that participated in the survey reported that they needed help with emotional, mental, alcohol, or drug problems.2
This report focuses on the oral health outcomes and the systemic conditions and barriers impacting those outcomes for Latines and Indigenous communities in California. Through an analysis of publicly available data on utilization, chronic oral disease, social determinants of health and systemic barriers, as well as an analysis of healthcare and oral health policy, this report finds that, to address the disparities in oral health for Latines and Indigenous Californians, we must advance both acute & long-term solutions.
Only 8% of the state’s dentists are Latine, while California’s Latine population is nearly 40%.
Among California elementary school-aged children, a significant portion of Latine children have untreated dental disease, with 72% of Latine children experiencing higher rates of tooth decay, compared to 40% of white children.
In California, Latine adults are significantly less likely to have an annual dentist visit compared to Whites (57% vs. 73%.)
Securing Food, Securing Our Future: The Impact of Food Insecurity on Latinx Children & Families
This brief analyzes the complex political and economic landscape that Latinxs in California face to access state and national nutritional assistance programs.
In 2020, more than one in three Latinx adults across California lived in food-insecure households. Nearly 950,000 of those adults lived in food-insecure households that included children.
In 2020, 800,000 food-insecure Californians lacked access to nutrition safety net programs – especially true for immigrant, undocumented communities.
During the pandemic, CalFresh experienced a substantial increase in program enrollment, from 4.1 million enrolled in February 2020 to 4.8 million enrolled in June 2020. However, despite the increased participation, 800,000 food-insecure Californians still reported lacking connection to nutrition safety net programs.
“Community Health Workers and Promotores: Investing in Change Agents for a Healthy California”
In recent years – LCHC has worked to incorporate Promotoxas into our community programming as well as bringing community voices to our advocacy. As part of the efforts to create this workforce, this report hopes to build on the work LCHC does with Promotorxs and Community Health Workers to identify opportunities to create sustainable and lasting change in collaboration with partners across the state.
LCHC Policy Brief Archive
For the past decade, LCHC has served as a hub for Latinx focused health policy research and information. This archive contains our health policy briefs stemming back to the early 2000’s. Check out our work:
Visit our policy archive here!
Community Data
‘Nuestras Voces, Nuestras Salud’ Community 2024 Listening Tour
In Spring of 2024, the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California (LCHC) in collaboration with the California Alliance for Prevention Funding (CAPF) embarked on a virtual community listening tour, “Nuestras Voces, Nuestra Salud.” The tour engaged nearly 50 Latinx grassroots, Promotorxs and Community Health Workers (CHWs) across 5 different California regions and facilitated discussions with participants about the impact of COVID-19 in relation to access to healthcare services, housing, food security, job security, mental health and more. Below you can access and download 1 pagers for each of the regions in both English and Spanish:
Our Mental Health Matters: An Advocacy Toolkit for the Kern Community
Our Mental Health Matters: An Advocacy Toolkit for the Kern Community” connects the community to mental health resources in a culturally relevant and user-friendly way. We appreciate the support of Comité de Promotoras en Kern, Vision y Compromiso, Kern residents, and mental health advocates in the creation of the Toolkit. Listening sessions were conducted focused on mental health in the Kern community and the findings along with recommendations are provided in the Toolkit.
The Toolkit was made possible by funding from the California Mental Health Services Oversight & Accountability Commission (MHSOAC).
2020 Community Priorities Brief
By working side by side with Latinx community leaders (e.g. Promotores/Community Health Workers) and employing community-based participatory research (CBPR) practices, LCHC is working toward more inclusive ways to collect and share data in the interest of meaningful policy change. This information is what we refer to as “community data”—research in community, by community, for community.
2019 Latinx Experiences Accessing Healthcare Brief
LCHC partnered with the CA Pan Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN) in 2019 to learn more about the experiences of Latinx individuals and caregivers in accessing quality, culturally and linguistically appropriate care. LCHC recruited Latinx community members living in the Central California and San Diego regions. Participants had health coverage, used or had a family member who had used health care in the past year, were over 18 years old, self-identified as Latinx, and were available to participate at the designated time and place of the focus groups.
