Latin Research Articles

Introduction: the turn to racism and anti-racism in Latin America

ABSTRACT We are currently witnessing a turn to racism and anti-racism in Latin America. The recognition of racism is not new, but the attention and challenge to racism, in such an orchestrated way, is. What are the signals of such turn to racism and anti-racism? What are the overall lessons for Latin America and from Latin America to global antiracist efforts? This introduction looks at the arguments of the articles in this special issue to highlight how issues of racial visibility, naming racism, racial data, legal rights and recognition, entrepreneurship, mestizo identity, the possibilities of alliances, racially-aware struggles against class (and gendered) oppression, are key to understanding this turn. While we do not claim that these articles cover the full extent of this turn in Latin America, we suggest that analysing how this turn appears in Latin American opens useful ways of thinking about anti-racism more widely.

Working against racism: lessons from Latin America?

ABSTRACT It has often been asked if Latin America has any lessons in anti-racism for other regions. This kind of comparative approach reifies and homogenises regions as distinct “cases”, obscuring common ground. In contrast, a relational approach highlights commonalities and suggests that learning experiences in developing anti-racism can be shared across and within different contexts. Examples from Ecuador and Mexico suggest that the historical relation between race and class in Latin America has produced a “racially-aware class consciousness” that could be mistaken as a simple “lesson” for other regions about how to balance a politics of recognition with one of redistribution. A relational approach highlights that this “lesson” also applies within Latin American countries, because this racially-aware class consciousness is not simply a fully-formed given, but instead needs to be activated and developed in progressive directions, pushing against the currents of history and coloniality.

Unpacking the “fluidity” of Mestizaje: how anti-indigenous and anti-black racism determine social relations and economic destinations of Mestizos

ABSTRACT In this paper, we examine the centrality of mestizo people in the Mexican national political and social project of mestizaje. We argue that mestizos are far from homogenous, and that exploring their socio-economic and cultural differences sheds light on how racial hierarchies operate in contexts of mestizaje. Using data from the Project for Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA), we (1) uncover the heterogeneity of the mestizo population in terms of Indigenous background; (2) show how skin color and place of residence predicts membership of different subgroups within the mestizo population that vary in terms of their Indigenous affiliations, and (3) reveal educational and socio-economic inequality within the mestizo population based on individuals’ Indigenous affiliations and skin color. We provide a nuanced understanding of how anti-indigenous and anti-black racism conflate in contexts where racial mixing is part of the ideology and daily practices of social life.

On Blackness, images and anti-racist work

ABSTRACT In this article, I explore the use, production, and readings of images in antiracist work as processes in constant tension with racist logics. Racist logics are deceptive and entrapping, and the visible world is a particularly dynamic arena in which to analyse this. Images, specifically photographs, incorporate a nuanced and productive contradiction between their ability to illustrate, explain and evoke, on the one hand, while also ensnaring, on the other, partly through alluring and providing pleasure. This contradiction means that anti-racist projects may include the possibility of re-inscribing racist discourse and practice. Drawing on empirical examples from Mexico, this article interrogates how photographic representations of Blackness have been entangled with the racist logics and racial projects that feed them. Racialised images that emphasise the physical body of Black people raise questions about how mestizaje, Latin America’s main racial formation, has coded the visual space of representation in confusing ways.

Knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards the risk of zoonotic diseases, wildlife trade and wildlife consumption in Latin America

Knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards the risk of zoonotic diseases, wildlife trade and wildlife consumption in Latin America

Perceptions and Knowledge on the Impact of Climate Change on Health: A Multinational Study in Latin America

Perceptions and Knowledge on the Impact of Climate Change on Health: A Multinational Study in Latin America

Exposure to phthalates and obesity among Latino/Hispanic youth in the US and Latin America: cases from the HHEAR Repository

Exposure to phthalates and obesity among Latino/Hispanic youth in the US and Latin America: cases from the HHEAR Repository

Design and Outcomes of Training Programs that Support the Next Generation of Environmental Health Scientists in Latin America

Design and Outcomes of Training Programs that Support the Next Generation of Environmental Health Scientists in Latin America

Health benefits of Open Streets programmes in Latin America: a quantitative health impact assessment

Health benefits of Open Streets programmes in Latin America: a quantitative health impact assessment

The 2023 Latin America report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change

The 2023 Latin America report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change

The influence of early-life exposome on children’s respiratory health in a Latin American country: a request for interregional exposome studies

The influence of early-life exposome on children’s respiratory health in a Latin American country: a request for interregional exposome studies

Temperature-related mortality in nine Latin American countries under climate change and population scenarios

Temperature-related mortality in nine Latin American countries under climate change and population scenarios

Application of a methodology for the development of air quality and health indices in Latin American countries

Application of a methodology for the development of air quality and health indices in Latin American countries

Facial and content validity of the CDC-NIOSH“Dampness and Mold Assessment Tool. General Buildings" into Latin American Spanish.

Facial and content validity of the CDC-NIOSH“Dampness and Mold Assessment Tool. General Buildings" into Latin American Spanish.

Attrition rates and predictor factors for follow-up in an Ecuadorian birth cohort study: Strengthening validity in the Latin American context

Attrition rates and predictor factors for follow-up in an Ecuadorian birth cohort study: Strengthening validity in the Latin American context

Closing the gap: prognostic and predictive biomarker validation for personalized care in a Latin American hormone-dependent breast cancer cohort.

Several guidelines recommend the use of different classifiers to determine the risk of recurrence (ROR) and treatment decisions in patients with HR+HER2- breast cancer. However, data are still lacking for their usefulness in Latin American (LA) patients. Our aim was to evaluate the comparative prognostic and predictive performance of different ROR classifiers in a real-world LA cohort. The Molecular Profile of Breast Cancer Study (MPBCS) is an LA case-cohort study with 5-year follow-up. Stages I and II, clinically node-negative HR+HER2- patients (n = 340) who received adjuvant hormone therapy and/or chemotherapy, were analyzed. Time-dependent receiver-operator characteristic-area under the curve, univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression (CPHR) models were used to compare the prognostic performance of several risk biomarkers. Multivariate CPHR with interaction models tested the predictive ability of selected risk classifiers. Within this cohort, transcriptomic-based classifiers such as the recurrence score (RS), EndoPredict (EP risk and EPClin), and PAM50-risk of recurrence scores (ROR-S and ROR-PC) presented better prognostic performances for node-negative patients (univariate C-index 0.61-0.68, adjusted C-index 0.77-0.80, adjusted hazard ratios [HR] between high and low risk: 4.06-9.97) than the traditional classifiers Ki67 and Nottingham Prognostic Index (univariate C-index 0.53-0.59, adjusted C-index 0.72-0.75, and adjusted HR 1.85-2.54). RS (and to some extent, EndoPredict) also showed predictive capacity for chemotherapy benefit in node-negative patients (interaction P = .0200 and .0510, respectively). In summary, we could prove the clinical validity of most transcriptomic-based risk classifiers and their superiority over clinical and immunohistochemical-based methods in the heterogenous, real-world node-negative HR+HER2- MPBCS cohort.

Chagas Disease: Epidemiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment.

This review seeks to describe the updates in the literature - particularly with regards to the epidemiology and diagnosis of Chagas disease. Additionally, this paper describes updates to the antiparasitic treatment for Chagas disease. With regards to changing epidemiology, autochthonous cases are being found within the USA in addition to Latin America. Additionally, there appears to be more intermixing of discrete typing units-meaning, they are not confined to specific geographic regions. Screening for Chagas disease is recommended in persons who lived in areas with endemic Chagas, persons wtih family member diagnosed with Chagas Disease, persons who have lived in homes of natural material in Latin America, and persons with history of kissing bug bites. Treatment for the parasitic infection remains limited to benznidazole and nifurtimox, and the role of these treatments in Chagas cardiomyopathy has not yet been definitively defined. Finally, indications for and management of heart transplant in the setting of Chagas disease are discussed. Use of antiparasitics during chronic chagas disease should be further explored. Additionally, future research identifying other markers of infection would be valuable to defining cure from infection.

The Impact of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis RDRio Subfamily on Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Latin America: A Comprehensive Review.

Latin American region is a high-burden setting for tuberculosis where multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is among the main challenge to move forward the End TB Strategy goals. It has been shown that MDR-TB is associated to certain Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) lineages like L2-Beijing sublineage or L4-LAM. Although L2-Beijing is present in South America, the L4 lineage is the most prevalent with values ranging from 75% to 99% depending on the country. Within L4, Latin American-Mediterranean (LAM) family is the most prevalent. Moreover, within LAM, RDRio subfamily is present in high prevalence in several countries in South America like Venezuela or Brazil. RDRio has been associated to MDR-TB in several studies in Brazil but more epidemiological information is needed for South America. Here we discuss the problem of MDR-TB in Latin America and the potential threat that RDRio could represent. At this time, more molecular epidemiology studies are necessary to improve TB surveillance programs in Latin America by tracking MTB strains potentially responsible for MDR-TB spread.

Intake of sugar sweetened beverages among children and adolescents in 185 countries between 1990 and 2018: population based study

ObjectiveTo quantify global intakes of sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) and trends over time among children and adolescents.DesignPopulation based study.SettingGlobal Dietary Database.PopulationChildren and adolescents aged 3-19 years in 185 countries between...

Spatial spillover effects in the labour market in a middle-income country

ABSTRACT Most macroeconomic labour literature on estimating matching functions does not consider spatial spillover effects. However, job search and vacancy-filling processes often involve neighbouring locations, as local workers can search for and fill vacancies in nearby labour markets. We estimate a spatial spillover model using annual data for a middle-income country in Latin America. Our findings show that unemployment has a positive spatial spillover effect because an increase in the labour supply raises the probability of filling a vacancy. In contrast, vacancies have a negative spillover effect because local and neighbouring vacancies compete to be filled by workers in both markets.