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IN OUR COMMUNITY
Lecture and discussion focus on diabetes in Delaware’s Hispanic community
More than 50 percent of Hispanics are expected to develop diabetes at some point in their lives, compared to 40 percent of the population overall. Hispanics also are more likely to die of complications of diabetes. That’s why it’s important to remove barriers to care, said Lolita Lopez, CEO of Westside Family Healthcare, at a Sept. 28 event at Christiana Care’s John H. Ammon Medical Education Center.
“We have to figure out what is keeping patients from getting care and then come up with enabling services,” she said, in a presentation titled “Breaking Down Walls to Serve Our Community.”
Westside Family Healthcare is a Joint Commission-accredited, nonprofit federally qualified health center and a longtime partner of Christiana Care Health System. Lopez said that when Westside was launched in 1988, most patients were Hispanic.
84%
of Hispanic patients have incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
“They were not being served in their own language and in a culturally competent way,” she said.
Today, Westside operates six bilingual health centers throughout Delaware, as well as a mobile unit for farm workers in Kent and Sussex counties. About 43 percent of Westside's patients identify as Hispanic or Latino.
The majority of patients — 84 percent — have incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
She talked about the importance of addressing social determinants of health, such as the stress of utilities being cut off, hunger and unemployment.
Partnerships can help to alleviate disparities,
she said. Westside is distributing “prescriptions” for produce that can be redeemed at the Delaware Food Bank. Westside partners with Stand By Me and the Delaware Financial Literacy Institute to help families learn | CONTINUED
Dana Beckton, Lolita Lopez, CEO of Westside Family Healthcare, Jacqueline Ortiz, M.Phil, and Margot Savoy, M.D., MPH.
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