Health
» According to the American Heart Association, over 60% of Latinos/as have a  sedentary lifestyle. Twenty-five percent of the males and 14% of the females are smokers.
American Heart Association, 1997

» Heart disease, and stroke are the leading cause of death for Latinos/as, accounting for 34% of the deaths among females and 28% among males.  Cancer is the second cause of death for Latinos/as, accounting for 21% of the deaths among females and 18% among males.
American Heart Association, 1997

» Data from the Corpus Christi Heart project reveal that while Mexican-Americans and non-Latino whites have similar blood levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, Mexican-Americans have higher levels of triglycerides and lower levels of the "good" HDL cholesterol.
American Heart Association, 1998

» Research among a Texas community of 300,000 people that is equally distributed between Mexican-Americans and non-Latino whites found that Mexican-Americans between the ages of 45-59 had more than triple the risk of having a stroke than non-Latino whites.
American Heart Association, 1999

» Of the 688,200 AIDS cases reported to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention through 1998, African-Americans and Latinos/as accounted for 55% of the total AIDS cases, 77% of the women, 81% of the heterosexuals, and 81% of the children. More specificly, of the total 47,884 AIDS cases reported in 1998, 9,566 were Latinos.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1998

» By 1998, Latinos/as constituted 13% of the total U.S. population yet accounted for 20% of the new AIDS cases. 
Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1998

» The Harvard School of Public Health projects that by the year 2005 the number of newly reported AIDS cases among Latinos/as will surpass that of non-Latino whites.
National Minority AIDS Council, 1998

» The highest rates of AIDS among Latinos/as in the U.S. are found in the Northeastern region.  In 1997, the AIDS case rate per 100,000 Latino/as was 163.1 in New York, 118.5 in Connecticut, 98.1 in the District of Columbia, and 77.7 in Pennsylvania.
National Minority AIDS Council, 1998

 

Statistics