discuss the Hispanic/Latino minority. Please use information from CDC guideline.

Health Promotion in Minority Populations- The Hispanic-Latino Community

Ethnic minorities in the United States have many barriers to healthcare services such as disease management and health promotion activities. Hispanic/Latinos are the largest minority population. They encountered many health issues due to several issues such as lack of access to healthcare services, low socioeconomic status, and lack of coverage by insurance companies. This population suffers from hypertension, cancer, diabetes, and HIV/AIDs (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2021). Healthcare professionals should thus be culturally competent to ensure they identify health disparities this population is suffering from. They must also institute care plans which will meet the needs of this population. Do you need urgent assignment help ? Get in touch with us at eminencepapers.com.

Identification and Description

Hispanic/Latinos include people from Central American countries, South American Countries, and Mexico. This ethnicity values family with a lot of respect accorded to the elderly. They are always consulted on any significant decisions. Hispanic/Latinos are raised to respect figures of authority and the elderly. They value their language and teach their children Spanish. The Hispanic/Latino is patriarchial in nature. The father is the head of the family, and his job is to provide for the family. The mother, on the other hand, hand takes care of the family and the children. They practice unity and love, and when a family member has a problem, the whole family steps in to help the individual. They are a religious ethnicity, with most of them being Roman Catholics. They pray for good health and healing. They prefer traditional herbal medicine to cure their ailments. They use herbal products and fork healers for their health issues (Green et al., 2017). There is a lot of superstition in this ethnicity, and they attach diseases to supernatural forces.

Health Disparities and Nutritional Challenges

The nutritional practices in this group are causing them a lot of health issues. Hispanic/Latinos consume high amounts of carbohydrates, such as rice, spicy foods, and sugary drinks (Mora & Golden, 2017). This predisposes them to diabetes. Most Hispanics/Latinos are of low socioeconomic status, and hence, they practice these traditional dietary practices since they are cheap and can cook large amounts for their families. Fast foods in the United States are cheaper than organic meals, and hence Hispanics/Latinos tend to eat fast foods that have a high-fat content, further predisposing them to diabetes. Most Hispanics/Latinos are obese, with an average national prevalence of 45.8% among adults (CDC, 2021). This makes Hispanics/Latinos the ethnicity with the second-highest prevalence of obesity in the United States.Hispanic/Latino American adults have a higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes than other ethnicities in the United States, with a national average of 40%. In comparison, Hispanic/Latinos have a 50% of developing diabetes (CDC, 2021). Diabetes is one of the leading causes of mortality in this minority population.

Barriers to Health

One barrier that Hispanic/Latinos face is language barriers (Mora & Golden, 2017). Most members of this ethnicity speak Spanish as their only language. Others are not fluent in English, and hence, they cannot effectively communicate with healthcare professionals who do not speak Spanish. The second barrier they face is many illegal Latino immigrants in the United States (Velasco-Mondragon et al., 2016) due to this illegal status. Many Hispanics/Latinos fear seeking healthcare services due to fear of deportation.

Another significant barrier to access to healthcare is the lack of insurance coverage by this group. Hispanics have lower rates of insurance coverage compared to non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs). In 2014, 26.5% of Hispanics did not have insurance coverage, while the NHWs only had 10.4% non-insured (Velasco-Mondragon et al., 2016). The poverty levels among Hispanics are also high compared to other ethnicities in the United States. The median household income of Latinos/Hispanics is 52% lower than that of non-Hispanic whites, with close to 23.6 of Latinos/Hispanics living below the poverty level (Velasco-Mondragon et al., 2016). This is in contrast to the national average, which is at 14.8% (Velasco-Mondragon et al., 2016).  Due to these poverty levels, Hispanics cannot enroll in healthcare insurance, increasing the risk of not accessing healthcare services.

Health Promotion Activities

Hispanic/Latinos believe that health has physical and emotional dimensions (Mikell & Snethen, 2020). They believe that there i