Study: McAllen area Hispanic children have fewer opportunities

Latino children in the McAllen area tend to live in worse neighborhoods than white children, and so are less likely to grow up healthy, a study released Tuesday says.

In the March/April issue of the journal Health Affairs, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health conclude that the McAllen metropolitan area is one of the five worst regions of the country in its proportion of Latino children who live in "low-opportunity" neighborhoods compared to white children.

Low-opportunity neighborhoods tend to have fewer grocery stores with fresh produce, poorer schools, fewer parks and playgrounds and higher crime rates than high-opportunity neighborhoods, said lead researcher Dolores Acevedo-Garcia. Those factors contribute to children's overall health as they grow up, she said.

"Neighborhood conditions are really the foundation of healthy development," said Acevedo-Garcia, associate professor at Harvard. "There's research that says living in poor neighborhoods can affect a number of health outcomes."

The researchers used data from the 2000 Census in the study, comparing the distribution of children of different ethnicities to certain neighborhood quality indicators such as poverty rates, rentership and unemployment.

Rates of smoking, drug use, risky behaviors and obesity all are higher among people who have grown up in impoverished neighborhoods, Acevedo-Garcia said.

A study that appeared in last month's Pediatrics reinforced the theory that poverty impacts children's health. That study suggested that children who fall at 200 percent or below the federal poverty level or who live in "unsafe" neighborhoods are less likely to have "very good" health.

The study singles out McAllen because the disparity between the neighborhoods in which Latino children live and the neighborhoods in which white children live is great, Acevedo-Garcia said.

The Health Affairs article doesn't mention the Brownsville-Harlingen metropolitan area.

Poverty rates in McAllen in general are high, for children of all races, but the poorest white children still live in better neighborhoods than Hispanic children, she said.

Some local health officials questioned whether the study's data took into account recent improvements in Hidalgo County and Rio Grande Valley-wide.

"We have some poor areas ... but I feel there's been some inroads made," said Eduardo Olivarez, CEO of Hidalgo County Health Department. The Children's Health Insurance Program and Medicaid have enrolled more children and improved access to health care, and neighborhoods are making infrastructure improvements, he said.

Still, many children in the Rio Grande Valley live in neighborhoods that offer few opportunities for developing a healthy lifestyle, said Dr. Brian Smith, regional director for Texas Department of State Health Services' Region 11, which includes the Valley.

"They are the kids who talk about not being able to walk to the grocery store because someone's waving a gun, or because there are no sidewalks, and the playgrounds are locked," Smith said.

Smith said that counties should work on finding ways to make impoverished communities healthier, and that neighborhoods ought to get involved, too. For example, neighborhoods could organize an old-fashioned paseo, with the whole community taking a walk together, he said.

"Everyone needs to get together and drive out the more dangerous elements," Smith said.

Latino Children in Poor Neighborhoods

Five metro areas with highest "segregation" between white and minority children, and their percentage of Latino children who live in poorer neighborhoods than the worst-off white children:

McAllen - 60 percent

El Paso - 63 percent

Fresno, Calif. - 70 percent

San Antonio - 73 percent

Los Angeles - 78 percent

Source: Health Affairs, March/April 2008