The researchers Camino A statewide study of the strengths and needs of the state’s Hispanic/Latino community is underway. State and Cape Fear Region results are preliminary. Mecklenburg County and Western North Carolina.
Kelly Kenoyer: Lenin Caro is a principal investigator at Camino, a community resource center and health clinic in Charlotte, where she has been conducting research on Latino populations for the past five years. Thank you so much for joining us.
Lenin Caro: Hello and thank you for having me.
KK: So you recently worked on a community needs assessment of Latino residents in the Cape Fear region and across the state. Can you give us some high-level findings in terms of the needs of this population?
LC: Right. So, broadly speaking, the most needed services tend to be health care related. So dental services tend to be number one across the board. Access to parental health services, preference for a doctor who speaks their native language (presumably Spanish), access to vision services. These are patterns that we see across the state in terms of what the Hispanic community is looking for.
KK: One of the things I’ve noticed in the Southeast Regional Outlook is that it’s not just about access to health care options, whether or not you can get to a doctor’s office with your health insurance. There’s also a language barrier when it comes to accessing health care. So what is that language barrier issue?
LC: Health is such a sensitive topic, isn’t it? A lot of people feel more comfortable talking about their health in a language they understand. And, as we all know, the bureaucracy of the healthcare system itself is so complicated. It’s all complicated: paperwork, understanding policies and insurance. A lot of it is not easily available, even in Spanish. So that can make you feel anxious about interacting with the healthcare system and you might think it’s not worth it.
KK: Another thing that interested me as I read through this research is that many of these people are turning to religious leaders for help and accessing resources, rather than going to local authorities. So why is this happening, and how can governments better serve these people?
LC: We have other hypotheses. They might sound nerdy, but they should be called hypotheses. The first is that our sample had a lot of undocumented immigrants who participated in the survey, and they may have fear or distrust of interacting with government agencies. In the survey itself, source of faith refers to pastors, churches, people who chose faith. We thought we might put God in the response options and see what happens. And a lot of people chose that.
That suggests people are more likely to turn to their faith or their faith community in times of need, and they may feel unwelcome at their local health department, or they may not have anyone there who speaks Spanish, or they may not be able to speak Spanish. think That means there’s no one who speaks Spanish at the local health department or any of the resources they’re trying to engage with.
This result can be interpreted in a variety of ways: Do governments need to do more to make immigrants feel more welcome and take advantage of their resources, regardless of whether they have documentation or not, whatever their status is? Or can it be interpreted as meaning that there may be creative ways to partner with faith-based and nonprofit organizations to provide services to this community that is already being served first by immigrants?
KK: Why is it important to study the Latino population in the Cape Fear region and North Carolina?
LC: Yes. The Latino population has grown substantially in North Carolina over the last 30 years. It’s grown exponentially. In the Southeast, it hasn’t grown as much as other parts of North Carolina, like the Charlotte area, Durham, the Triangle area, the Woodson-Salem Triad area, but it’s still growing. Latinos are becoming more and more a part of our communities. And as they’re becoming a bigger part of our communities, I think we have to have a shared responsibility to make sure that Latinos have access to the resources they need to live fulfilling lives, raise their families, and support themselves. We need to understand better if issues like language, access, discrimination, mistrust, are barriers that are preventing this community from being more integrated or being a more active part of our communities. And you know what’s a better way to do that than by asking people directly what they think and what they need?
KK: Lennin Caro, Camino’s Principal Investigator, thank you so much for your time.
LC: Thank you so much for inviting me.
Camino hopes to have statewide results and results for the Cape Fear region by the end of 2024.
