Ipas > Ipas launches Latino initiative in its home state

Ipas launches Latino initiative in its home state

January 26, 2006

Latinos’ access to sexual- and reproductive-health services and information is not keeping pace with the rapid growth of their population in North Carolina.

Photo courtesy of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

As North Carolina becomes home for the nation’s fastest growing Latino population, there is also a burgeoning need for reproductive and sexual health care among the state’s newest residents.

Ipas has launched a new domestic project called “Promoting Sexual and Reproductive Rights Advocacy in North Carolina’s Latino Communities.” It will be supported, in part, by a recent grant from the Winston-Salem-based Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.

The project fits into one of the foundation’s priority areas: social justice and equity. Defining this funding focus, the Z. Smith Reynolds Web site says it seeks “to protect the rights of women to make choices about their reproductive health” and “to provide adolescents with information and choices that encourage them to avoid pregnancy.”

The three-year Latino project will influence decision-makers and mobilize Latino leaders in a network to improve access to sexual- and reproductive-health services and information.

Ipas U.S. Program Director Rivka Gordon said: “North Carolina has a very strong progressive community and a strong advocacy community, but immigrant rights often tend to be neglected. We seek to be that bridge.”

Latinos’ need for sexual and reproductive health care is vast. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, North Carolina’s Hispanic population skyrocketed by almost 400 percent between 1990 and 2000. But when it comes to health care, many of the state’s Latinos rely heavily on community-based health initiatives, such as migrant health or free clinics. More than half of North Carolina’s adult Latino residents have no medical insurance.

Ipas has already begun assessing the needs of the statewide Latino populace, made up mostly of Mexicans and Central Americans. It has undertaken a comprehensive review of the literature concerning Latinos’ reproductive and sexual health. And last year, it released “The Sexual and Reproductive Health of Latinas in North Carolina,” a study of five N.C. counties with sizable Latino communities.

The study found that Latinos meet their health needs through both formal (hospital, clinics) and informal means (self-medicating or turning to traditional healers). Their contraceptive use varies according to cost, availability, education and cultural norms. And despite notions that Latinas are likely to continue an unwanted pregnancy because of religious or cultural concerns, they are seeking abortions — sometimes clandestinely.

Gathering that information has shaped the project’s goals, which include a statewide survey of Latino sexual and reproductive health. Among its immediate objectives is the creation of a publication that will directly reach women faced with an unintended pregnancy.

Gordon said: “We’ve identified the need for simple, straightforward information about pregnancy options in Spanish. So we’re developing a low-literacy brochure about that. The information does exist, but it’s not in the places where Latina women are or they’re in such technical language it might not be appropriate for someone who’s new to this country. Some people may not even know that abortion is legal here.”

For more information, contact:
Kirsten Sherk
Senior Associate, Media Relations
e-mail: sherkk@ipas.org
phone: 919.960.5612
fax: 919.929.0258