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= Salud America! = Salud America! is a Latino-based organization aimed at creating health equity for children. The organization creates multimedia to spread awareness throughout schools and communities to positively impact the health of Latino children. The program was established by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2007 to promote healthy changes in Latino schools and communities and is currently funded by the organization. As a project started by Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR), based out of University of Texas, the goal is to help the Latino community in developing healthy opportunities for children.

Salud America! works alongside both media platforms and policy-makers in their mission for improved youth health. The program is directed by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez who is also the director of IHRP as a project in the sector of the university.

Purpose
Obesity among Latino communities has risen in the last 40 years from 14% to 34%. This stems from the obesity epidemic shown throughout America during recent history. Obesity causes major health concerns for individuals including increased rates of Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes, Dyslipidemia, and Hypertension. Latino communities and their individuals have higher rates of obesity among both adults and children than their caucasian counter-parts in America.

Salud America! aims to lower the percent of Latino individuals, specifically children, affect by this epidemic to increase the long-term health of the Latino community.

History
The program began in 2007 through a project based out of the University of Texas, San Antonio. Located out of San Antonio, the association helps Latino communities throughout the nation in providing awareness to promote health equity. Through the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Salud America! has been able to impact thousands of Latinos across the nation through education and community reform in child nutrition and lifestyle training.

On September 9th 2009, Salud America held their first Scientific Summit that aimed at informing the Latino community of the detrimental health effects of obesity. Over 200 researchers, policy-makers, and other community leaders were brought together to discuss the promotion of educational tools surrounding nutrition and familial habits. Since the original Summit, there have been 3 additional Summits that also brought a scientific community together to discuss improving Latino communities as healthier places and reducing Latino childhood obesity.

In 2017, the program partnered with Univision to produce segments on healthy lifestyle information on a nation-wide basis. Their first segment in May of 2017 was on breast-feeding mothers and their diets to stimulate fetal health and newborn health following birth.

Awards
Salud America! has earned 3 Digital Health Awards for their website, facebook page, and twitter page. The Digital Health awards is a set of awards stemmed from the Health Information Resource Center that recognizes health resources throughout the world.

Salud America! was named “Best Health Advocate Reaching Latino(a)s Through Social Media” in 2016 by Latinos in Social Media (LATISM). LATISM is a non-profit that supports Latino technology and their innovations in society.