Research Program Areas
Health and Social Well-Being of Low-Income Women, Children, and Families
Director: Ruth E Zambrana, PhD
Scope
Low-income families bear a disproportionate burden of poor health status and outcomes as a result of residence in resource-poor environments and institutional forms of differential treatment.
This program area seeks to build a more comprehensive and ethnic-specific scientific knowledge base on the effects of the intersection of poverty, institutional barriers, and other non-medical factors that contribute to adverse health status. This approach takes into account the influence of race, gender, and ethnicity to promote responsiveness in the development of future health interventions.
Fundamental Research question: How do low SES, race, ethnicity, institutional barriers, and psychosocial and community resources contribute to the health and well being of women, children and families?
Specific Projects:
Latino Children: Providing a Research Synthesis for Promoting Relevant Child Health Policy.
The goals of this project are to synthesize and analyze existing research on health related
issues among Latino children, identify policy measures to address the problems, and disseminate
knowledge of Latino child and family health at the national and state policy level. This information
is to be used to advocate for social change and public policy to inform new initiatives on Latino
families and children with our partner the NCLR Policy Analysis Center.
The project used four approaches:
- Conduct a meta-analytic analyses of literature on relevant Latino child health
- Retrieve state data on Latino children in 10 states
- Convene a policy Roundtable of major and diverse stakeholders to develop a consensus on key policy talk-points
- Disseminate information via multiple media to impact national and state policy to improve Latino child health.
Preliminary analyses of findings were presented to an expert panel to translate research findings into policy talk-points to present at round table discussions.
Promising Practices in Family Support for Latino Families with Young Children: This project seeks to fill three major information gaps in the area of responsive services to Latino families and children. Project activities include: identification of programs and "Promising Practices" that most effectively respond to the needs of Latino families and children, adaptation and administration of survey to programs who serve over 50% of Latino children and families, compilation and evaluation of parent training materials for use in community-based organizations, dissemination of products through printed and electronic media at all major conference events.
Future research projects will focus on low-income Latino and African American women’s preventive screening practices and the burden of chronic disease.
Collaborating Partners:
- National Council of La Raza
- Family Support of America
- National Latino Children’s Institute
Selected Publications
Books
- Aguirre-Molina M, Molina C, and Zambrana, RE (eds). Health Issues in the Latino Community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Spring, 2001. Forthcoming.
- Ruth E. Zambrana (Ed.) (1995). Understanding Latino Families: Scholarship, Policy, and Practice. Newbury Park, California: Sage Publications.
Book Chapters
- Carter-Pokras O and Zambrana RE. "Latino Health Status." In Health Issues in the Latino Community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Spring, 2001. Forthcoming.
- Flores G and Zambrana RE. "The Early Years: Latino Children and Youth." In Health Issues in the Latino Community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Spring, 2001. Forthcoming.
Articles
- Zambrana RE and Logie LA. "Latino Child Health: Need for Inclusion in National Discourse." American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 90, No. 12 (December): 1827-1833.
- Amaro H and Zambrana RE. "Hispanic/Latino and Multiple Race Categories: Mestizo, LatiNegro, Afro-Latino, or White or Black?" American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 90, No. 11 (November): 1724-1727.
- Zambrana RE and Carter-Pokras O. "Health Data Issues for Hispanics: Implications for Public Health Research." Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Vol. 12, No. 1 (February): 20-34.
- Ruth E. Zambrana, Nancy Breen, Sarah A. Fox, and Mary Lou Gutierrez-Mohamed (1999), Use of Cancer Screening Practices by Hispanic Women: Analyses by Subgroup, Preventive Medicine 29:466-477.
- Ruth E. Zambrana, Susan C. Scrimshaw, Nancy Collins and Christine Dunkel-Schetter (1999), Mediators of Ethnic-Associated Differences in Infant Birth Weight, Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 76(1): 102-116.
- Ruth E. Zambrana (1996). The Role of Latino/Hispanic Communities in Health Services Research: Strategies for a Meaningful Partnership. Journal of Medical Systems, 20(5):325-336.
Presentations
- Ruth E. Zambrana. "Latino Families and Children: Translating Cultural Wealth into Social Capital," at the Asset Based Conference on the Strengths of Children, Families, and Communities, Orlena Hawks Puckett Institute, February 5, 2001, Asheville, NC.
- Ruth E. Zambrana. "Linking the Past, Present, and Future: Elevating the Latino Agenda into the National Discourse," at the New Jersey Medical School, Hispanic Center of Excellence, Department of Medicine and FOCUS Community Health Center, November 17, 2000, Newark NJ.
- Ruth E. Zambrana. "Boys to Men: A Roundtable on Improving Access to Health Care," at the Opening Doors Roundtable, October 19, 1999, Washington DC.
- Ruth E. Zambrana. "Promoting Latino Family and Child Welfare: A Call for Transformation of the Child Welfare System," at the Los Ninos de Los barrios, PRACA, Borough of Manhattan Community College, October 15, 1999, Manhattan, NY.
- Ruth E. Zambrana. "Latino Families, Children and Youth: What are the Needs?" at the 1999 Joint Conference by Grantmakers for Children, Youth & Families and Neighborhood Funders Group, September 26, 1999, Miami Beach, FL.
Related RIGs:
Health Disparities by Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class