The following article was published in the Trenton Times on January 28th. To read the full article, click here.

Study: Majority of Trenton’s Latinos uninsured, without health care

By Erin Duffy/The Times of Trenton 
on January 28, 2013 at 7:45 AM, updated January 28, 2013 at 7:47 AM

TRENTON — A new study on the health of Trenton’s Latino immigrants shows the vast majority of this fast-growing population is uninsured, suffers from high obesity rates and does not have a regular health-care provider.

This lack of insurance, coupled with language barriers, means many Latinos in the city, especially immigrants, aren’t getting the health care they need, Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund (LALDEF) executive director Maria Juega said.

“This community, this Latino immigrant community, needs to feel comfortable enough to walk into these facilities and feel they’re going to be cared for and welcomed and understood and served properly,” Juega said. “I don’t think we’re there yet.”

In 2012, LALDEF surveyed 106 Latinos, many of them low-income and foreign-born, living primarily in the city’s East and South Wards. Surveys were conducted door-to-door and at two health fairs at St. Francis Medical Center.

On average, survey respondents were 34 years old. More than 90 percent were immigrants, many of them from Guatemala.

When it came to health insurance, 86 percent of respondents had none. Thirty-four percent had body mass indexes that placed them in the category of obese and 74 percent had no regular health-care provider, often relying instead on home remedies.

Many more women than men have been tested for HIV in the last year, though half of respondents had never been tested for the virus, and use of local emergency rooms remains low, especially among men.

The findings weren’t surprising, Juega and local health officials said, but show the city, its health-care providers and local Latino community have to work harder to improve health-care access and education, to make sure residents get preventative screenings and show up for scheduled appointments.

“We’re figuring out, given the limited resources we all have, how do we partner together to maximize resources to reach this community?” said Dr. Kemi Alli, chief medical officer for Henry J. Austin Health Center. “That’s what we’re all working towards.”

The federally funded clinic used to have an outreach person who worked with local Latino communities, but that position was cut as funding dried up years ago, Alli said.

Roughly 30 percent of the patients who show up at the health center are Latino, she said.

The Trenton Health Team, a nonprofit that includes representatives from the city, Henry J. Austin, Capital Health and St. Francis, is working on a community health needs assessment and improvement plan and heard similar stories from Latinos interviewed for the study, executive director Dr. Ruth Perry said.

Residents have few fresh food options or haven’t been taught good nutrition. Some are diabetic but were never shown how to properly check their blood sugar. Others have undiagnosed mental health conditions and across the city, many have voiced fears about escalating violence and crime, Perry said.

The local providers are working to combat these problems, she said, by scheduling same-day appointments, reopening a free, city-run pediatric health clinic later this year and pushing families to get kids immunized for school.

Contact Erin Duffy at (609) 989-5723 or eduffy@njtimes.com.