♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Hey, hey (bright music) - Good evening, and welcome to "Horizonte," a show that takes a look at current issues through a Hispanic lens.

I'm your host Catherine Anaya.

Four years ago, the coronavirus shut down the world.

According to WHO, the World Health Organization, the deadly virus killed 3.5 million people, but that number could be higher.

And no group of people has been hit harder by COVID than people of color.

Factors contributing to that are disparity in healthcare and a lack of access, along with misinformation.

In the US, Latinos are three times as likely as whites to get COVID, and they are two times as likely to die from it.

When we dive deeper and look at Arizona, 31% of people in Arizona are Latino, and they account for 27% of the deaths overall.

And this year so far, Latinos make up a third of the cases, while only 20% are vaccinated.

For many in the Latino community who did get COVID, it was just the beginning.

They now suffer from what's called long COVID.

It's a combination of debilitating side effects, like extreme fatigue, heart issues, and memory loss.

And when they try to explain it to their family members, they are met with skepticism.

Joining me now to discuss long COVID and the Latino community is Professor Gilberto Lopez with ASU's School of Transborder Studies.

Professor, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- You have done extensive research into long COVID and its impact on the Latino community in particular, and you've launched a campaign to help educate our community, which we're gonna talk about in just a moment.

But would you, for our purposes of understanding long COVID, explain or describe what it is and what a COVID long hauler is?

- Yeah, so long COVID could be defined as a continuation of symptoms after someone tests negative for COVID, after they've been healed from COVID-19, after they test negative for having the virus.

And these lingering effects could be cough, shortness of breath, aches, pains.

There's many different symptoms that come with it from a couple weeks, months or even years after the COVID diagnosis.

- [Catherine] Well, I read that there are some 200 different symptoms, and I wanna share just a couple of statistics with you and with our audience.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Latinos have the highest rates of long COVID.

About 9% of Hispanic adults report symptoms compared to 7.5% of US adults overall.

Then through a reoccurring survey, the Census Bureau estimates that 36% of Latinos nationally have had long COVID.

So Professor, based on your work and your research, do you believe those numbers are accurate or do you think that they are actually much higher?

- Yeah, I think it's safe to say that it's an under count, and for various reasons.

One, Latinos have the lowest rates of having health insurance.

That means they have the lowest likelihood of going to or having a primary care physician that they go to regularly.

So what that means is they're not going to get healthcare.

So a lot of these diagnoses are not happening in clinics.

So yeah, I think it's safe to say that it's an under count, and the numbers are much, much, much greater.

- [Catherine] And do you think it also has a lot to do with the fact that maybe many in our community don't know what long COVID is or don't know how to recognize that they are symptoms?

Because as I understand it, some of those symptoms could actually worsen something that already exists, for example, diabetes.

- Yeah, and I think it's a combination of factors, both information, knowledge, also culture.

I think knowledge-wise, what long COVID is, the idea of long COVID seems to not be there in the Latino community at the same rates in other groups.

We did a few studies, we did interviews and focus groups and surveys, and we were asking that question, what is long COVID to you?

Is it with the Latino community across Arizona?

And across the board, the theme that we see is people know that something's happened after COVID.

They had COVID, now they get sick faster, they have more pain, they get winded easier.

So all these things somehow are connected to COVID.

But the idea that these are all symptoms that we are now calling long COVID, it's not quite there with the Latino community.

That speaks to the way we transmit information, clinical information to communities and how we do need to do a better job making sure that this information, crucial information about health comes to the Latino community in the same quality and quantity as it does to other communities.

- [Catherine] And not just in our community, but also to doctors and physicians, wouldn't you say?

Because there are some people out there who think that the instances of long COVID in our community are underdiagnosed because maybe many doctors just don't know how to diagnose it, don't know what to look for.

- Yeah, there are many factors at play there as well.

For example, Latinos are more likely to go to the ER.

That's where they get some of their care, especially those who do not have health insurance.

They'll wait, they'll linger until an illness becomes an emergency, go to the ER.

And of course, the relationship you have with the ER, with the doctors is not the same that if you had a primary care physician who's been looking after you for months.

So that diagnosis makes it difficult, depending on the context.

As well, Latinos are more likely, the ones who live in rural America, to go to these health centers in rural areas, which are under-resourced, understaffed usually.

So doctors have a higher patient load.

So the relationship people have with their doctor is different because of the social and economic context in which people live.

So it makes it harder to diagnose, have a conversation.

In addition, you have all these other quote unquote competing diseases and illnesses that are affecting the Latino community that doctors need to also to be monitoring, heart disease, cancer.

All these other causes of death in the Latino community are also something doctors need to be aware of.

So I would say it's just the doctors not diagnosing.

I think it's the context in which healthcare occurs for the Latino community makes it more difficult to get a diagnosis at par with other communities.

- [Catherine] Well, as I mentioned, you have done extensive research when it comes to long COVID.

You've been in communities that have been impacted by it.

What can you tell us about the impact of long COVID on family life and work life?

- Yeah, no, it's having a devastating effect.

First COVID, the Latino and African American and Black community were the two most affected communities with regards to infection and also death.

So we've had a lot of death in these communities, in the Latino community.

But now that we're going into long COVID, we know, for example, with the work life balance, the relationship that happened with that balancing of work and life and family life, we know that Latinos are less likely to have health insurance from work.

They're more likely to work these jobs that they call, we call the 3D jobs, jobs that are dirty, dangerous, and demanding.

Agriculture, the service industry, tourist industry, these jobs that require the body, physical, intensive jobs.

These jobs are less likely to give you health insurance, work from home, sick time policies.

So that means whenever people from this community fall sick or fall ill, they either cannot miss work, or if they do miss work due to illness, they don't have the paid time off.

So that means there's gonna be an economic impact on the Latino community, as well as what's gonna happen with the next generation of healthcare providers in the home.

Are the children gonna have to take on responsibilities if mom is constantly getting sick every winter with pulmonary diseases or infections that are more common now after having COVID?

What does that mean to relationship, the family dynamics that happened?

- [Catherine] Right.

- Children take on caregiver responsibilities.

But yeah, there is a change and there's gonna continue to be a change for the next generation.

- [Catherine] Well, there are very serious implications of understanding long COVID, diagnosing it, and of course, educating our community about it.

And you are doing a great job with the campaign that you recently launched.

It's called COVID Latino.

Tell me about your visit in 2020 to the California farm workers community, where you grew up, and how that influenced your desire to create and launch this campaign.

- Yeah, so in March of 2020, I was back home visiting my parents, my folks.

I'm originally from the Central Valley of California, a farm working agricultural region.

And while I was there is when the lockdown happened, so I was home for a few months, not being able to go back.

So I was working from there.

And one thing that really frustrated me and that I saw this inequity occur in front of my eyes in my community is the information about COVID, just basic information.

What is COVID?

How to wash your hands, wear a mask.

Very simple, basic information was not coming across in the same quantity or quality to the farm working community that I belong to.

I did my graduate studies at Harvard School of Public Health, and the network of people there, the information that was coming down through that network, that Harvard network was completely different than the information coming through to a farming community.

That injustice, it really angered me, and I decided to launch the COVID Latino campaign to ensure that we bridge that communication, bridge these worlds and make sure that the Latino community, the farm working community gets the same amount, the quality and quantity of information that my Harvard bubble was getting.

And so that's how it started.

So we started using the arts, using the arts to get information to the Latino community.

The arts are very, very, very, a good way of communicate information.

The arts are with us in the best of times and the worst of times.

We have a song for- - [Catherine] I love it.

- We have a song for when we're happy, we have a movie.

So the arts are very much part of our narrative, our storytelling.

So we're using the arts, and especially culturally tailored art, which means we're bringing in the messaging that is coming from science, coming from the health field, the medical field, and putting that same message into ways the Latino community could easily update.

- [Catherine] Well, it's vibrant.

The animation is wonderful, very engaging, and it's relatable.

So I think that people will have an easier time, like you were saying earlier, of understanding some of the clinical names, diagnosis around long COVID.

You've done a spectacular job.

We wanna invite everybody to go to covidlatino.org to find out more information about this campaign.

What has been the overall feedback so far?

- Yeah, so far people have...

It has really resonated in many areas, in the health area, the studies, testing, the examination.

Does this campaign work?

Does it increase knowledge?

Do people like it?

Yes, across the board we're hearing yes.

But also we're collaborating with artists from Hollywood and local artists here in the Phoenix metro area, and it's been well received in the artist sphere.

We've entered film festivals, we've won a few Laurels, a few awards in the film festival circuits.

So it's been getting really positive reviews and feedback from it.

And it's great to hear 'cause it's...

Although it seems innovative, using art as a way for help communication, it's not nothing new, but it's something that's essential, it's needed.

We need to make sure that we get messaging to the community in a way that the community can understand.

That's essential.

- [Catherine] I appreciate it so much.

I think it's wonderful.

It's covidlatino.org and it's going to definitely make a difference.

So thank you so much for joining me and explaining more about this project, and of course, long COVID overall, Professor.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me.

- Thank you.

And that's our show for tonight.

For "Horizonte" and Arizona PBS, I'm Catherine Anaya.

Have a great night.

♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Hey, hey (bright music)