National Hispanic Heritage Month invites us to celebrate the Latinx community. The Year 2020 has been a challenging year and a difficult one to celebrate. The COVID-19 pandemic, opioid and suicide epidemics, an economic slowdown with widespread unemployment, and racial unrest simultaneously impact the nation yet affect the Latinx community especially hard.

The value of prevention cannot be overstated. Particularly, in these difficult times, we know that many may turn to substances to cope with the new stressors we are all now faced with.

SAMHSA is one of several collaborating HHS agencies leading the Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America. SAMHSA’s goal is to improve prevention, increase testing frequency, and increase referrals and support linkage to HIV treatment when necessary. SAMHSA has concentrated 70 percent of the Minority AIDS initiative grantees within the 48 identified areas with the highest number of new HIV cases.

  SAMHSA’s 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) estimates that 1.1 million Hispanic/Latino youth used illicit drugs in the past year, including 208,000 who misused opioids in the past year.

 A new school year often brings a fresh start for children and their families. A new opportunity to wake up on time, get homework done early, and accomplish academic goals together. For parents, it’s also a time to revisit conversations with their children about alcohol and other drugs. According to SAMHSA’s 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an estimated 2.2 million adolescents ages 12-17 and 18.8 million young adults ages 18 to 25 had consumed alcohol in the past month.

The suicide rate among African American children aged 5 to 11 years has increased substantially since 1993 and is persisting, according to Dr. Jeffrey Bridge, a leading researcher at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital. In 1993 suicide ranked as the 14th leading cause of death among this population. Today it’s the 10th leading cause of death—with rates nearly twice that of their White counterparts. While it is not intuitive and is difficult to understand, suicide ranks as a leading cause of death among all youth aged 5-11 years. Dr. Bridge and his colleagues are among the first to spearhead suicide research within this young population, and their work has revealed these concerning trends in suicidal behaviors among African American children.