Toxic stresses combined with poor infrastructure threaten hundreds of thousands of residents of U.S. communities on the Mexican border, according to new research that examines living conditions in the impoverished colonias.
Texas counties lack zoning authority, except in a few designated areas, such as near dams or military bases. So for decades unincorporated colonias have been built throughout the Lower Rio Grande Valley. They often lack paved roads, electricity and sanitary services, and building standards are nonexistent. Chronic diseases such as tuberculosis are rife, and contribute to a wide range of other physical and mental disorders, according to a study presented Sunday at a conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Chicago.
Researchers conducted 63 surveys of colonia residents and visited homes to understand and document conditions the inhabitants face, fostered by lack of adequate sewage, wastewater treatment, trash collection, electricity and paved roads.
In the homes they visited, the team identified numerous troubling consequences stemming from substandard housing.
“As a pediatrician, I was saddened to witness the level of toxic stress the colonia residents and children had to endure,” said co-lead researcher Pei-Yuan Pearl Tsou, a pediatric hospitalist in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. “But I was also extremely moved by their inspiring resilience and their active participation in our study, as well as other community-organizing efforts to take on these challenges.”
[For more on this story by Sean Duffy, go to https://www.courthousenews.com/doctors-find-public-health-crisis-south-texas/ ]
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