COLUMBIA, S.C. — The American Heart Association has launched a new campaign called “Stay Fuerte For All.” The campaign will provide educational resources about COVID-19 in Spanish to the Latino community.
“It’s really all about raising awareness and making sure that people have the resources that they need to live a long and healthy life,” said AHA executive director Crystal Kirkland, “We need to be strong together and we are better together and if our Hispanic community is not getting vaccinated, they are more at risk, they are more at risk of transmitting to others and we want everyone here to live a long, healthy life.”
The CDC reports Hispanics and Latinos are 2.8 times more at risk to be hospitalized for COVID-19 and 2.3 times more likely to die of COVID-related causes.
The AHA said this disproportion is due in part to a lack of educational resources available about the vaccine in Spanish. This is causing fear within the community due to misinformation.
“The American Heart Association understands that there’s a lot of barriers that’s keeping people from the doctor so we try to make sure that all of our resources are available in English and Spanish as well as other languages as well,” said Kirkland.
The campaign will be on social media, which is where the Pew Research Center reports 75 percent of US Latinos are getting their news.
The AHA is sharing posts in both English and Spanish that links people to information about the COVID-19 delta variant and debunks myths about the COVID vaccine.
The campaign will also include multilingual information about mental health, physical health, and overall wellness.
“Really hoping to make people feel more okay about talking about the mental health and making that not something that’s secretive and people are ashamed of. It’s a part of our overall health and we want people to recognize it and know what to do and the steps to take,” said Kirkland.
You can find out more information about the campaign here.
