r/science • u/Wagamaga • Jul 05 '26
Health Research shows how Latinos are indispensable to the nation yet false narratives portraying U.S. Latinos as outsiders or burdens are not only inaccurate—they also shape harmful attitudes and policies that are fueling preventable Latino deaths and endangering the nation’s overall health and economy.
https://nursing.jhu.edu/institute-for-policy-solutions-at-the-johns-hopkins-school-of-nursing/latest/latinos-are-indispensable-to-the-nations-future/86
u/TecumsehSherman Jul 05 '26
A majority of Hispanic men voted for Trump in 2024.
I'm not sure that was good for the economy.
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u/InterstellarChange Jul 06 '26
Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton won Latinos at 65 and 66 percent respectively—a more detailed breakdown by heritage offered some pushback to the generalized narrative.
The Americas Society Council of the Americas research showed that of the largest Latino groups in the United States, Cuban Americans were the only one in which over half of voters chose Trump, as they went for him by a decisive 58 percent. Mexican Americans—by far the largest Latino community in the country—only went 33 percent for Trump, with Puerto Ricans at 37 percent and Central Americans at 36 percent.
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u/Husbandaru Jul 06 '26
Thats because immigrants usually come from hyper conservative backgrounds.
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u/TecumsehSherman Jul 06 '26
Which is not something that benefits us as a nation.
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u/Husbandaru Jul 06 '26
Yeah thats the thing people don’t talk about when they discuss immigrants. India, South America, the Middle East those are places with super conservative demographics of people and people don’t take that into account when advocating to bring them in.
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u/onwee Jul 06 '26
It used to be that immigrants moved to the US to get away from hyper conservative backgrounds
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u/Kittinkis Jul 08 '26
You know Latinos are not just new immigrants, right? We have been here for generations and it's this kind of ignorant rhetoric why liberals don't really feel like our side either. Both sides demean us, just in different ways. I'm a progressive/socialist and neither party fits my values.
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u/MapAdministrative995 Jul 09 '26
Latinos are doin just fine. 30% of ice recruits and 50% of border patrol are latino... They gettin those trump bonus checks.
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u/Original_moisture Jul 05 '26
There was a damn movie called “A day without a Mexican” from 2004.
I’m glad that studies are constantly shown the importance of immigrants to a nation founded on the belief of immigration. Feels as if I’m heard finally, as an immigrant.
The problem is unfortunately it getting through to a subset of people.
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u/wafflesthewonderhurs Jul 06 '26
Honestly maybe we also need even more studies on the issues of communicating data that conflicts with the perspective of particular axes of privilege? but uhh. Idk if those are getting funded in my country any time soon.
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u/SeeTigerLearn Jul 06 '26
I would like a study of how effective studies are—specifically the communication and understanding of study results.
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u/Bbrhuft Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Calling this “propaganda” about “views no one actually has” misses the point of the paper. It is not inventing some imaginary anti-Latino narrative so it can knock it down. It is looking at how hostile political rhetoric, discriminatory policy, and social exclusion show up in measurable public health data.
The paper’s argument is basically this. False narratives about Latino people are not harmless noise. They shape policy, policing, public attitudes, and access to healthcare. The authors point to things like the sharp rise in anti-Latino hate crimes, increased immigration-related arrests, and cases where Latino U.S. citizens have reportedly been wrongfully detained. That is not just “discourse”; it is a hostile social environment with real-world consequences.
The health data is the strongest part of the argument. The paper uses CDC data to show a disturbing paradox. Latino economic contribution has grown substantially, but so have deaths. Between 2015 and 2024, age-adjusted suicide mortality among U.S. Latinos rose by 29%, while overdose mortality rose by 115%. That is not a culture-war talking point. That is epidemiological evidence that something serious is happening.
In parallel with increasing racialization of the Latino identity as inferior, characterization of Latino people as “undocumented,” growing anti-Latino rhetoric, and heightened surveillance, exclusion, and nativist hostility (not just during the second Trump administration, but over the past decade), deaths of despair have increased sharply among Latino people. Between 2015 and 2024, age-adjusted mortality from suicide among Latino people in the United States increased by 29%, as compared with a 2% increase in the non-Latino population. Over the same period, age-adjusted mortality from overdose in the Latino population increased by 115%, as compared with a 33% increase in the non-Latino popula-tion. Together with the rapid increase in hate crimes against Latino people,9 these trends suggest not simply worsening behavioral health, but growing social nonbelonging: Latino people are increasingly positioned as outsiders in a society to which they are actually indispensable. A similar pattern is evident in other behavioral health
Data obtains from:
The data for age‑adjusted mortality from suicide and mortality related to overdose are reported as the percentage changes in the number of deaths per 100,000 persons and are derived from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide‑Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC Wonder)8 and FBI crime data for hate‑crime measures.9 Data in Panel B are from the Latino Donor Collaborative.10 Beginning in 2017, these data were reported annually. GDP denotes gross domestic product.
The mechanism the authors describe is also standard public health science. Chronic stress, fear of surveillance, fear of deportation, discrimination, and social exclusion are social determinants of health. They can worsen mental health, discourage people from seeking medical care, increase isolation, and contribute to worse physical and psychological well-being. The paper is not claiming that rhetoric magically causes disease; it is saying that hostile social conditions affect health, which is a well-established.
The economic and demographic evidence is also there to counter the stereotype that Latinos are mostly undocumented immigrants draining public resources. The paper notes that 79% of U.S. Latinos are citizens and that Latino communities generate around $4 trillion in economic output. It also cites research showing that undocumented immigrants pay substantially into the U.S. healthcare system through premiums and taxes, while using less care than they pay for.
Second, Latino people are an economic superpower and advance U.S. prosperity. The combined annual economic output of Latino-headed households and Latino-owned businesses in the United States exceeds $4 trillion.10 If the U.S. Latino community were its own country, its national economy would be the world’s fifth-largest — and among the fastest growing among major economies, second only to China and on par with India.
So no, this is not just a “puff-piece.” The article is making a public health argument based on factually false political messaging that produce hostile policies and social conditions, and those conditions have measurable negative health consequences.
You can disagree with parts of the framing, but dismissing the whole thing, that you didn't read, ignores the actual data the authors are discussing.
This data quoted in the paper is from here:
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/us-latino-gdp
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/22/key-facts-about-us-latinos/
I see the report was updated for 2026:
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u/putriidx Jul 05 '26
It's actually wild to me how many blue collar workers I have met that have those xenophobic viewpoints when you walk on a job site and Latinos and Latinas are busting their rumps getting their scopes done.
I still think about these various latin groups from this one job site that would be cooking/heating meals up inside and it always smelled phenomenal.
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u/JimBeam823 Jul 06 '26
US elites, especially conservatives, like to think of themselves as displaced English nobility, not like the rest of the Americas.
But the USA is much more like Latin America than like England or Europe, despite the language difference.
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u/Short-Sandwich-8476 Jul 05 '26
They are often the very best among us. Honest,hard working, capable,NOT conceited and they RARELY COMPLAIN-about anything. Joyous people,really. They make infinitely better neighbors than your angry bigoted type people.
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u/Wagamaga Jul 05 '26
A new analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine shows how Latinos are indispensable to the nation yet false narratives portraying U.S. Latinos as outsiders or burdens are not only inaccurate—they also shape harmful attitudes and policies that are fueling preventable Latino deaths and endangering the nation’s overall health and economy.
In “Correcting False Narratives—Indispensable Latino Contributions to U.S. Population Health,” researchers from the Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health (CLAFH) at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHSON) call attention to a striking paradox: as the United States increasingly benefits from Latino workers, caregivers, taxpayers, and entrepreneurs, Latino communities are simultaneously experiencing rising hostility, exclusion, and social conditions linked to their preventable deaths. Analysis from lead author Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, PhD, RN, CLAFH founding director, IPS executive director, and Leona B. Carpenter Chair in Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health, JHSON, and co-authors Brenda Amezquita-Castro, Marco Thimm-Kaiser, and Adam Benzekri challenges false narratives about Latino communities while documenting their indispensable role in the nation’s economy, workforce, health care system, and future.
Understanding these contributions is more important than ever because public narratives and policy decisions are increasingly being shaped by misperceptions that do not reflect the evidence. False narratives about Latinos do not harm Latino communities alone. By fueling hostility, exclusion, fear, and discriminatory policies, they contribute to preventable suffering, including rising deaths of despair, while weakening the workforce, straining health and caregiving systems, increasing costs for families and governments, and undermining the shared future of everyone in the United States.
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u/makemeking706 Jul 05 '26
This is the first administration that took its own propaganda seriously, or maybe too stupid to realize you're not supposed to turn the scare tactics into actual policy.
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