Insight
Tapping the power of WhatsApp and text to improve health in Latino communities
By James Estrada, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA)
Today, 6.7 million Latinas across the country live in states that restrict their reproductive rights.
It’s harder for Latinos to access health care: Latinos are also more than twice as likely to be uninsured as non-Latino whites, and even those with health insurance face barriers of cost and scheduling that make Latino families less likely to get care.
Planned Parenthood addresses these challenges every day through Latino-focused programmes, like Promotores de Salud — community health workers who support reproductive health access and sex education in Spanish-speaking communities around the country.
Additionally, Planned Parenthood’s Spanish-language website, blog, and chat/text with a sex educator service command a total of 52 million visits per year in the U.S.
Together, these services provide medically accurate health information and paths to care at nearly 600 Planned Parenthood health centres nationwide.
We’re also keeping abreast of innovation in health technology, recognising its potential to expand access to sexual and reproductive health care and information.
Thankfully, there are community-based organisations and startups building solutions by and for U.S. Latinos, prioritising the needs of patients and designing tools to meet them where they are.
Some organisations are building infrastructures supporting more patient-centered health care, and others are expanding their Spanish-speaking telehealth services to expand access.
Most importantly, these efforts from community members and founders are breaking down barriers to care and putting patients first, with health equity at the centre of it all.
1. Latina-focused solutions help solve health equity challenges by addressing underlying structural barriers:
After the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which ended our federal abortion rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) launched a bilingual “Step-by-step guide to abortion.”
It was viewed 2.1M times in Spanish, compared to 500K in English, showing an outsized need for comprehensive guidance and clarity to navigate the stress around abortion access among Latinos in particular.
In addition, PPFA helped a popular Spanish-language web app grow its capacity to offer emotional support.
Aya Contigo, founded in Venezuela, provides chat-based emotional support and education about medication abortion — using a proven model built by feminist organisations in the global south.
Users can link to Aya Contigo in many ways, one being from plannedparenthood.org, and then talk directly to a compassionate and experienced Spanish educator.
Someone who shares their language and culture can help ease frustrations and affirm their decisions.
Aya Contigo chatters often confront abortion stigma within their families as well as challenges such as the lack of a credit card to pay for care, the inability to travel out of state, and privacy concerns.
The service is designed to provide a virtual accompaniment at every step of getting an abortion, which is especially useful for those who might otherwise be alone or lack access to accurate information.
With the proven success of the Spanish-language service, PPFA launched an English version this past year, which supported 1500 patients, with one in three finding their way to providers.
It’s just one of many examples of how we focus on the specific health equity barriers of an underserved community offering solutions that benefit everyone.
Some call this the curb-cut effect, which references how disability policies, like making sidewalk curbs wheelchair accessible, have ultimately helped us all (Source).
2. Connect on their terms:
Chat and text health care innovations keep patients informed and engaged, but the relationship-based model of care has deeper cultural roots.
As any child of immigrants knows, the younger generation often schedules appointments or completes an English-language form in the waiting room with a relative — starting at a young age.
Knowing that patients depend on others for advice, navigation, and affirmation, the best innovators give patients access to experts who can provide education or help them navigate the health care system — not to replace, but to extend their care network.
Research shows that 1 in 3 Latina Gen Z’s talk to family members about their care decisions.
Whatsapp is where those conversations happen, with 54 per cent of Hispanic adults using the platform (Pew).
Because anyone with a WiFi connection can use Whatsapp as their primary messaging tool, Aya Contigo was launched in a way that could reach the majority of Latinos, including those new to the country.
We found that 85 per cent of Aya Contigo users preferred communicating on Whatsapp over web-based chat, a platform with which they are already comfortable and where an open communication channel is possible.
Don’t underestimate the power of WhatsApp and text messaging with a human expert to reduce friction and increase access to care and information.
3. Personalised care can’t always be digital
Some innovators who dominate the conversation on personalised care focus on data collection and tracking to empower users to take charge of their health.
On the one hand, Latinos tend to be super-users of digital health tools like period-tracking apps and wearable health trackers, outpacing their non-Hispanic Black and White counterparts (source).
On the other hand, building a health care system that works for Latino communities requires us to go a step further—moving beyond individual health insights and taking actions that create family and community well-being.
For example, affordable telehealth solutions can help increase access for Latino communities in areas with provider shortages.
However, personalised care means rapidly connecting that virtual touchpoint with a real person who creates accountability and offers practical support.
The human side of personalised care can mean connecting with a local community health worker or promotora de salud or to services like Medicaid-reimbursable transportation coverage or providers like dieticians, doulas, coaches, and mental health providers who can continue supporting everyday well-being.
Find out more about PPFA at plannedparenthood.org
An early PET scan after one cycle of chemotherapy may help predict how aggressive breast cancer responds to treatment, a study suggests.
Research led by The Institute of Cancer Research, London and King’s College London suggests that an early scan taken after one cycle of chemotherapy could help predict how well a patient’s cancer will respond to treatment.
The study focused on patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive form of the disease in which cancer cells lack receptors for the hormones oestrogen and progesterone, as well as the HER2 protein.
Patients with TNBC are usually treated with chemotherapy prior to surgery. While many respond well, residual disease at surgery, typically around six months later, is associated with a significantly poorer prognosis. Identifying people sooner who are unlikely to respond remains a major clinical challenge.
The research explored whether using PET imaging shortly after treatment begins, rather than relying only on MRI scans later in the treatment process, could provide earlier insight into how a patient’s cancer is responding. Twenty-two patients were recruited, with fourteen undergoing FDG-PET scans before treatment and after the first cycle of chemotherapy.
The findings, published in Clinical Cancer Research, showed that changes seen on PET scans after just one cycle of chemotherapy were strongly associated with subsequent response, including whether there was no detectable cancer, known as a complete response, by the end of treatment. Importantly, early PET response showed stronger associations with treatment outcomes than standard mid-treatment MRI scans in this study.
Being able to identify patients who are not responding well at an early stage could allow clinicians to adjust treatment sooner or consider alternative approaches. These findings may also support future strategies to better tailor treatment intensity to individual patients.
The study also compared two types of PET tracers, FDG and FLT, to determine which was most suitable. While both met the study’s technical criteria, FDG-PET was selected for further evaluation due to its better image quality, greater consistency and wider use in clinical practice.
The research also explored how imaging changes after just one cycle of chemotherapy relate to the body’s immune response to treatment. Biopsies taken before and after the first cycle of chemotherapy showed that an increase in immune cells within the tumour was strongly associated with both early PET changes and improved treatment outcomes.
The researchers emphasise that these findings now need to be validated in larger studies. Future work will aim to confirm these results in broader patient groups and explore more accessible imaging approaches, such as ultrasound, alongside PET and MRI.
Sheeba Irshad, professor of cancer immunology at King’s College London and lead of the Breast Cancer Now KCL Research Unit, said:
“In patients who had PET scans both before treatment and after the first cycle, we found that this early scan could predict whether they were likely to achieve a complete response by the end of treatment. These findings highlight the potential of early imaging to guide treatment decisions, and now need to be validated in larger, modern clinical trials.”
Andrew Tutt, professor of breast oncology at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said:
“Research that helps us determine early who is already benefitting from standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy and who might benefit from clinical trials to find better treatments is vital. This study shows that FDG-PET may have great value in this regard. We hope to be able to design studies that further investigate and validate these findings.”
The study was supported by funding from King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Breast Cancer Now, Cancer Research UK, and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity.
Ki-67, a protein used to measure tumour growth, may also help prevent chromosome errors that drive cancer, a study suggests.
The findings could change how scientists view Ki-67, a marker commonly used in breast cancer and other tumours to assess how quickly cancer cells are growing.
Researchers found the protein may help preserve genome stability by maintaining the structural integrity of centromeres, key parts of chromosomes that help ensure DNA is shared correctly during cell division.
The research was led by professor Paola Vagnarelli at Brunel University of London in collaboration with scientists at the University of Edinburgh and the Technical University of Berlin.
Professor Vagnarelli said: “Doctors already measure Ki-67 to see how aggressive a cancer might be. But our results suggest it is actually helping maintain genome stability.
“That means it may be more than a marker. It could potentially also be a therapeutic target.”
The study examined three proteins that attach to chromosomes during cell division and help rebuild the molecular system that tells each new cell what kind of cell it is.
Every human cell carries identical DNA. What makes a liver cell different from a brain cell is which genes are switched on and which are kept inactive.
When a cell divides, that entire system of switches must be rebuilt. The three proteins involved in this process were Ki-67, Repo-Man and PNUTS.
Vagnarelli’s team developed a method that individually removes each protein from a living cell at the precise point of division. Older techniques could not isolate that moment cleanly.
They found that cells rely on all three proteins to reset themselves after division, but each failed in a different way when removed.
Without PNUTS, gene activity spiralled out of control and thousands of genes switched on at once.
Without Repo-Man, cells escaped safety checkpoints that usually stop damaged or abnormal cells from continuing to divide.
“What we didn’t expect was how clean the separation was,” said Vagnarelli.
Each protein fails in its own specific way. There is no redundancy, no safety net. Which means there are three separate points at which this process can go wrong.
“When the system breaks down, cells can emerge with the wrong number of chromosomes. That condition, called aneuploidy, is seen in disorders such as Down syndrome and in many cancers.
“We also found that these chromosome errors can trigger inflammatory signals inside the cell.”
Aneuploidy means a cell has too many or too few chromosomes, which can disrupt normal growth and function.
Inflammatory signals are chemical messages that can make a cell behave as if it is responding to injury or infection.
“These cells behave almost as if they are under attack,” said Vagnarelli.
“The immune response switches on because the genome is unstable.
“That link between chromosome imbalance and inflammation could help explain patterns we see in several diseases.”
The researchers said the findings may help cancer scientists better understand how chromosome instability, loss of gene regulation and cells dividing before they are ready contribute to tumour growth.
They said understanding the normal machinery that prevents these errors may help researchers find ways to push cancer cells into making mistakes they cannot survive.
“We now have a clearer map of the machinery that resets the cell after division,” said Vagnarelli.
“That knowledge gives us a starting point for thinking about new therapeutic approaches.”
After more than a decade of campaigning, doctors around the world have agreed to rename polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
It is hoped the new name, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS, will help end the misconception that the condition is all about cysts, which campaigners say has contributed to missed diagnoses and inadequate treatment.
The condition affects one in eight women, or 3.1m women and girls in the UK, and is linked to hormone fluctuations that can affect weight, mental health, skin and the reproductive system.
The renaming was spearheaded by UK patient charity Verity alongside Professor Helena Teede, director of Melbourne’s Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation.
It followed 14 years of consultation with clinicians and patients around the world.
The new name was published in a consensus statement on May 12 and announced at the European Congress of Endocrinology in Prague.
The paper states that PCOS should now be referred to as PMOS.
“This is a landmark moment that will lead to desperately-needed worldwide advancements in clinical practice and research,” said Professor Teede.
“It was heart-breaking to see the delayed diagnosis, limited awareness and inadequate care afforded those affected by this neglected condition.”
When doctors first named PCOS in 1935, they thought it was mainly caused by physical changes to the ovaries.
Decades of research have since changed that understanding, with clinicians now agreeing the condition is far more complex.
“What we now know is that there is actually no increase in abnormal cysts on the ovary and the diverse features of the condition were often unappreciated,” Professor Teede added.
“A name change was the next critical step towards recognition and improvement in the long term impacts of this condition.”
The exact cause of the condition is still unknown, though it is thought to be linked to abnormal hormone levels and is associated with insulin resistance and raised levels of testosterone and luteinising hormone.
Insulin resistance means the body does not respond properly to insulin, the hormone that helps control blood sugar. Luteinising hormone helps regulate ovulation.
Common symptoms listed by the NHS include irregular periods or no periods at all, difficulty getting pregnant, excessive hair growth, weight gain, thinning hair, oily skin and acne.
Campaigners have acknowledged that the name change could cause temporary confusion.
“Despite decades of tireless advocacy to improve awareness, we recognised that the risk of change would be worth the reward,” said Rachel Morman, chairwoman of Verity.
“This shift will reframe the conversation and demand that it is taken as seriously as the long-term, complex health condition it is.”
It is also unclear if, or when, the NHS will change the language it uses.
An NHS England spokesperson said: “We routinely review and update content on the NHS website to ensure it reflects the latest clinical advice and will carefully consider these recommendations.
“The NHS will also continue our work to improve women’s healthcare, including for this important group, which involves giving women more choice over their care, bringing down waiting times, and delivering more care in communities.”
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