U.S. Hispanics might overindex in the use of mobile devices
and broadband adoption, but when it comes to access to Spanish-language health
information, they are still way behind.
Hoping to change that, at least in metropolitan New York,
The Mount Sinai Hospital has produced ¡A
tu salud! a weekly health and wellness TV series to air Saturdays on
WNJU-TV, Telemundo's owned-and-operated station in New York.
"We realized there was this lack of health literacy among
Latino patients, and asked ourselves, ‘What can we do to help educate this
community?' " Mount Sinai president and chief operating officer Wayne Keathley
said.
The series, which premiered Jan. 7, will run for 13 episodes
and is co-hosted by Yamila Constantino, a former Bloomberg News editor, and
Mount Sinai's Dr. Eliscer Guzman. The duo shares information about common
ailments affecting the Latino community including diabetes, obesity and
cardiovascular disease.
While Keathley makes it clear the series is not intended to
be a commercial for The Mount Sinai Hospital, he says the use of commercial
media has been proven very "powerful" to reach a large group of people.
The hospital, founded in 1852, has embarked in in-language,
health outreach programs targeting the Russian and Greek communities in New
York City, but the Spanish initiative airing on WNJU is being pitched as "the
most elaborate and substantive effort" ever launched to serve a specific ethnic
community.
