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State of Hispanic Older Adults in the U.S
By admin | November 14, 2014
The National Hispanic Council on Aging released yesterday their “State of Hispanic Older Adults in the U.S.” report at a Congressional Briefing sponsored by US Representatives Michelle Lujan Grisham, Raul Ruiz and Tony Cardenas. Latinos for Healthcare Equity presented the healthcare findings of this important report.
Link to report:
http://www.nhcoa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2014-Status-of-Hispanic-Older-Adults-Report.pdf
From report:
“The state of Hispanic older adults in the U.S. is desperate. Hispanic older adults are facing high levels of poverty, economic insecurity, hunger, poor health and structurally deficient and unsafe housing. Although programs on the federal, state and local levels exist to mitigate these challenges, across the country Hispanic older adults are struggling to access them.
Programs that could alleviate hunger, for example, have application processes that are daunting for Hispanic older adults and services that are not accessible without transportation. Affordable, quality housing-stock is often simply nonexistent. Quality medical assistance is difficult to access because of the complexities of the U.S. health system. With all of these issues, one common problem is a lack of culturally and linguistically diverse employees who can help Hispanic older adults navigate the social services system.
As a result, Hispanic older adults often do not know about the services that are available, and if they do, they are unable to access them. In addition, when they do receive help from social programs, they often feel that they are not treated with respect. It is imperative that experts, funders and service providers from public and private sector, and decision-makers nationwide, make the aging community a top priority in the years to come, especially as older adults become a larger percentage of the U.S. population. The goal is to allow seniors to age in dignity, economic security and in the best possible health. We must all work to ensure that diverse seniors, including Hispanics, are fully included in this goal.”
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