Hispanic youths’ health sounds alarm

Thursday, July 11, 2002 | 11:06 a.m.

A report released last week on the health problems of Hispanic children could be a wake-up call for the Las Vegas Valley, area health care professionals said.

The article, "The Health of Latino Children," published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found Hispanic children are more prone to health problems such as cavities, abscesses, diabetes, obesity and tuberculosis.

It resounded in Las Vegas because the number of Hispanics under 18 is rising rapidly, as reflected in the makeup of the Clark County School District's student population. Of about 240,000 students last year, nearly one-third are Hispanic, up from 23 percent only five years ago.

And there just aren't enough bilingual doctors, dentists, nurses and other health care professionals to serve them.

"(This population) ... is growing faster than the support to provide them services," said Linda Newton, a health educator at a clinic based at Roy Martin Middle School that will see 1,500 children this year, about 70 percent of them Hispanic.

"I think this is going to become a crisis if we don't deal with it, because these people are here and they need help," she said.

The problem reaches beyond the number of patients crowding the few bilingual clinics available, the professionals say.

Sick Hispanic kids can spread infectious diseases, and their health problems may be contributing to a higher dropout rate among Hispanics -- 29 percent nationally compared with 13 percent for blacks and 7 percent for whites.

"Latino children are missing more days of school for health reasons, and there may be a link there," Newton said.

The report notes that language barriers and a lack of insurance are obstacles to good health.

"This report is right on the money, and we're seeing all these problems in Southern Nevada," said Dr. Benjamin Hart, medical director for the Pediatric Outpatients Unit at University Medical Center, which saw 26,000 children last year, about 42 percent of them Hispanic.

Hart and others said their impressions are mostly anecdotal, since studies on Hispanic children have yet to be done in Southern Nevada.

But they are seeing enough in their clinics to agree that the report's conclusions hold true here, primarily because the children and their families have trouble communicating and obtaining quality care.

"We have many parents coming in here who don't speak English, and even when we translate information into Spanish, some can't read well in their native language either," Newton said.

"Then we have about half of them who are undocumented, so they can't get insurance plans like Medicaid, which raises another obstacle when they need specialized care we can't provide. These people have few options," she said.

Newton said cavities and abscesses are among the most frequent problems she sees in Hispanic children locally. The national report quoted a study that found teens with Mexican backgrounds were twice as likely as white teens to have at least one untreated lesion from tooth decay.

"I'm seeing 2- and 3-year-olds with rotten teeth and abscesses," Newton said. "I've never seen that before."

Reasons for this may include a cultural habit of leaving babies with a bottle in the mouth when they are put to bed, a diet high in sugary foods and bad oral hygiene habits, she said.

The report also cites obesity among Hispanic children, which places them at risk for type 2 diabetes.

"We see a lot of obesity here," said Dr. Darren Rahaman, regional clinical director for the Nevada Health Centers and a family physician at the nonprofit's Martin Luther King Clinic -- which sees about 3,500 patients a year, about 40 percent of whom are Hispanic.

"Many Hispanic parents have told me ... the fatter their children are, the healthier they are, but I try and tell them this puts their children at risk for diabetes," he said.

Rahaman said he also is developing a tuberculosis screening protocol at his clinic, since some recent immigrants may be infected with the disease.

The stakes are high, Newton said.

"In the end, not paying attention to the health care needs of these children will represent problems for the society in general later on ... (whether) it's kids without education, or diseases like TB left unchecked ...

"That's why helping these people become healthy will help all of us, in the long run.". is growing faster than the support to provide them services. I think this is going to become a crisis if we don't deal with it, because these people are here and they need help."