Posts Tagged: identity
University-sponsored identity theft protection for faculty and staff
As part of the university's ongoing commitment to the well-being and security of its valued faculty and staff, UC will provide fully paid comprehensive identity theft protection for employees and their dependent children under age 18 through Experian.
Enrollment is automatic, but you must set up your account to take advantage of the program. On April 1, 2024, you will receive a welcome email from Experian with a personalized link to access the Experian portal and complete your account set-up. A Social Security number and date of birth will be required for account activation.
Key features of the identity theft protection program, effective April 1, 2024, include:
- Credit monitoring, reports and scores: Receive credit reports, scores and real-time alerts for any changes to your credit report, helping you detect potential identity theft
- Identity theft insurance and restoration services: Up to $1 million of identity theft insurance and 24/7 restoration services in the unfortunate event of an identity theft
- Dark web and proactive monitoring: Active scans of the dark web and many other databases for any compromised personal information
- Device protection and online privacy: A suite of privacy tools to help defend your digital data across all your devices
- Digital financial management – Financial tools and personalized insights to help you achieve your credit and financial goals
Visit the Identity Theft Protection Plan page on UCnet for more information.
UC is dedicated to helping you safeguard your personal/financial information and encourages you to take full advantage of this new benefit.
Webinars March 19-22
You are invited to attend an information session webinar the week of March 18. Please sign up for one of the sessions with the links below:
Experian Identity Theft Protection Overview for UC Faculty and Staff
- Tuesday, March 19, at 9 a.m. (PT) attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/9068859204436596824
- Tuesday, March 19, at 12 p.m. (PT) attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4916036771675503196
- Wednesday, March 20, at 3 p.m. (PT) attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4493690166190945626
- Friday, March 22, at 10 a.m. (PT) attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1708672293011095644
Attendance is limited to the first 3,000 attendees; the sessions will be recorded for those unable to attend. Experian will provide an overview of the program features, a platform demo and helpful reminders.
Your campus benefit team can assist you with additional questions or concerns. Thank you for your dedication to the University of California.
Resources
Ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/compensation-and-benefits/other-benefits/identity-protection.html
Thank you,
UCPath
(855) 982-7284
Monday - Friday from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
ucpath.universityofcalifornia.edu
Kitchen and Culture Clash When Promoting Healthy Eating to Latinos
Latinos suffer from some of the highest obesity rates in the nation. Health officials have tried to intervene with messaging that encourages healthy eating and healthy behavior, but these campaigns have met with little success.
Now a new study Opens a New Window. from UC Merced public health Opens a New Window. Professor Susana Ramirez suggests that efforts might be more successful if strategies encouraged Latinos to “decolonize their diet.”
Obesity risk among Latinos reflects a broader trend that public health experts have termed the “dietary acculturation paradox.”
“The paradox comes from epidemiological findings over the past 50 years that show that increased acculturation into mainstream U.S. culture is bad for your health,” Ramirez said. “If you look at immigrants born and raised in other countries who came to the U.S. as adults, they tend to be healthier than their American children.”
According to Ramirez, much of the problem stems from children of immigrants adopting American diets. These diets tend to be highly processed and high in unhealthy ingredients like fat, sodium and sugar. They're also low in healthy ingredients like fiber, complex carbohydrates and fresh fruits and vegetables.
This remains true despite gains in income and education, which are generally associated with better health outcomes. But Ramirez's new study provides insight into why the acculturation paradox affects Latinos.
Ramirez and her collaborators surveyed young, bicultural women — ages 18-29; of Mexican descent; living in the Central Valley; fluent in English — about diet and cultural values.
“We started talking to this audience to learn about the factors that influence their decision-making around diet,” Ramirez said. “We also wanted to know what features of health messages are persuasive to this particular audience.”
“Thinking of themselves as Mexican is a source of pride for these second- and third-generation women,” Ramirez said.
Participants also reported a desire to eat healthy. They listed portion control, balanced meals, and fruits and vegetables as part of a healthy diet; fried foods and foods high in fat and sugar were seen as unhealthy. They were also able to identify specific consequences of unhealthy eating, including obesity and diabetes.
The findings suggested that the prevailing wisdom about healthy diets had reached the group, but those messages weren't having the intended effect.
“Everybody was able to tell us what eating healthy was,” Ramirez said. “But we found that participants were saying ‘when I'm with my Mexican family and I'm expressing my Mexican culture, that is being unhealthy.' Culture is at odds with health.”
Ramirez had identified a second paradox, one that pitted kitchen against culture. Though respondents viewed traditional Mexican cooking as essential to maintaining their ethnic identity, most described Mexican food as inherently unhealthy and incompatible with a healthy diet.
“Healthy-eating promoters often encourage traditional food. But there's a disconnect there,” Ramirez said. “If you're going to tell Latinos to eat their traditional foods, that's priming them to think of unhealthy things. That can cause confusion.”
The solution, according to Ramirez, is a new approach to health communication — an approach that builds on the importance of Latino culture and frames the issue in ways that are relevant to the community.
“Healthy living messages often don't take culture into account,” Ramirez said. “For me, that suggests a pretty radical approach to health communication, an approach that's empowerment based.
“Talk about food and nutrition as rights they can advocate for in their community. Talk about how Latino populations are disproportionately targeted in marketing for junk food and fast food in their communities. It's an approach that empowers young Latinas to decolonize their diet."
Source: Published originally on UC Merced, University news, Kitchen and Culture Clash When Promoting Healthy Eating to Latinos, by Jason Alvarez, March 22nd, 2018.
New Medicare cards coming: Don't get scammed!
Are you age 65 or older?
If so, you may be targeted by a new Medicare scam.
Medicare is issuing new benefit cards with new benefit ID numbers.
Why?
Look at your Medicare card. Your social security number, which is also your benefits number, is printed on your card. This has led to growing rates of identity theft among those 65 years and older.
Its easy for a thief to get your number. Anyone who stands close to you when you check out at the pharmacy can see the number and use it to steal your identity and may even fraudulently claim benefits in your name. The same thing can happen if someone sees your card when you open your wallet at the cash register, or finds your missing wallet (with your Medicare card inside).
What's changing?
The government redesigned the Medicare card so that it does not reveal your social security number. You will be assigned a new personal benefits number. Here's what the new card will look like:
What do you need to do?
Nothing.
That's important because scammers may try to take advantage of someone who is not aware of the process for receiving their new card.
The new card will be sent to you. You do not need to fill out a form, pay a fee, or give someone your social security number. Here's what the Federal Trade Commission advises to protect yourself:
- If you get a phone call, email, text or letter claiming to be from Medicare and asking for your social security or bank account number...
IGNORE it! That's a scam. Medicare will never call (or send an email, text message, or letter) and ask for this information. - If someone asks you to pay for a new Medicare card...
IGNORE them. That's a scam. Your new Medicare card is free. - If someone threatens to cancel you benefits unless you give them information or send money...
IGNORE them.That's also a scam. There will not be any changes to your benefits.
When will this change happen?
Delivery begins in April 2018 and will be completed by April 2019.
Questions?
Learn more at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. https://www.cms.gov/medicare/new-medicare-card/nmc-home.html
Mixed Marriages Causing US Hispanics, Asians to Integrate Faster
This is especially true of children of mixed marriages.
“Most of this ethnic attrition, or most of this kind of missing identification, is from inter-marriage,” said economist Stephen Trejo of the University of Texas at Austin. “So, if both of my parents have Hispanic ancestry, then it's almost for sure that I'm labeled as Hispanic. But, if I only have Hispanic ancestry on one side of my family…and not the other, then there's a much lower rate of identification.”
In 2010, about 15 percent of all marriages in the United States were between spouses with a different race or ethnicity from each other. The percentages are even higher for Hispanics and Asians. Twenty-six percent of Hispanics and 28 percent of Asians married out, according to the Pew Research Center.
Marrying someone of a different race or ethnicity is much more common among the native-born population than among immigrants. Hispanics born in the United States are almost three times more to marry a non-Hispanic than foreign-born Hispanics.
Among Asians, 38 percent of the native-born and 24 percent of the foreign-born married a non-Asian.
Consequently, this third generation — the grandchildren of foreign-born Americans — is missing when experts like Trejo and fellow economist Brian Duncan from the University of Colorado, attempt to accurately measure the progress of those later generation groups.
However, for Hispanics, the opposite appears to be true.
“For Hispanics, the people who intermarry tend to be higher educated and higher earning,” Trejo said. “What that means is that the people we are missing, children of mixed marriages, could be doing better but we don't see that in the data because they're missing.”
It's possible that in time, Asians and Hispanics will proudly reclaim their lost heritage as the Irish have done. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Irish newcomers faced virulent anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment. However, by 1980, when possessing Irish ancestry had become decidedly mainstream, the U.S. Census found that far more Americans claimed Irish ancestry than could be explained by immigration and birth patterns.
The same occurred with the Native American population.
“A lot more people in 1980 than in 1970 where choosing to report their race as Native American rather than white,” Trejo said. “And part of that was, I think, the awareness of Native Americans. There'd been a lot more publicity about Native Americans. Thing like that can happen and change these subjective identifications.”
It's also possible that this so-called ethnic attrition is a natural result of the American melting pot, when people from many different countries, races and religions come to the United States in search of a better life and intermarry and assimilate, eventually becoming one homogeneous population.
“In some ways, it is an example of the melting pot,” Trejo said. “Inter-marriage and identifying with the mainstream is, in some ways, a really strong indicator of assimilation and so, in that sense, it's a good thing.”
Source: Voice of America Blog, Mixed Marriages Causing US Hispanics, Asians to Integrate Faster, by Dora Mekouar, March 7, 2016.
Afro-Latino: A deeply rooted identity among U.S. Hispanics
Afro-Latinos are one of these Latino identity groups. They are characterized by their diverse views of racial identity, reflecting the complex and varied nature of race and identity among Latinos. A Pew Research Center survey of Latino adults shows that one-quarter of all U.S. Latinos self-identify as Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean or of African descent with roots in Latin America. This is the first time a nationally representative survey in the U.S. has asked the Latino population directly whether they considered themselves Afro-Latino.
In the U.S., Latinos with Caribbean roots are more likely to identify as Afro-Latino or Afro-Caribbean than those with roots elsewhere (34% versus 22%, respectively). Those who identify as Afro-Latino are more concentrated on the East Coast and in the South than other Latinos (65% of Afro-Latinos live in these regions vs. 48% of other Latinos). They are also more likely than other Latinos to be foreign born (70% vs. 52%), less likely to have some college education (24% vs. 37%), and more likely to have lower family incomes. About six-in-ten Afro-Latinos reported family incomes below $30,000 in 2013, compared with about half of those who did not identify as Afro-Latino (62% vs. 47%).
Afro-Latinos' views of race are also unique. When asked directly about their race, only 18% of Afro-Latinos identified their race or one of their races as black. In fact, higher shares of Afro-Latinos identified as white alone or white in combination with another race (39%) or volunteered that their race or one of their races was Hispanic (24%). Only 9% identified as mixed race.
The multiple dimensions of Hispanic identity also reflect the long colonial history of Latin America, during which mixing occurred among indigenous Americans, white Europeans, slaves from Africa and Asians. In Latin America's colonial period, about 15 times as many African slaves were taken to Spanish and Portuguese colonies than to the U.S. Today, about 130 million people of African descent live in Latin America, making up roughly a quarter of the total population, according to estimates from the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA) at Princeton University.
Until recently, most Latin American countries did not collect official statistics on ethnicity or race, especially from populations with African origins. However, a recent push for official recognition of minority groups throughout Latin America has resulted in most countries collecting race and ethnicity data on their national censuses.
In 2015, for the first time ever, Mexico allowed people to identify as black or Afro-Mexican through a new question in its mid-decade survey. About 1.4 million Mexicans (or 1.2% of the population) self-identified as black or of African descent based on their culture, history or customs, according to Mexico's chief statistical agency.
Afro-Latinos make up significant shares of the population in some corners of Latin America. In Brazil, about half of the population is of African descent (black or mixed-race black). In the Caribbean, black Cubans make up about a third of that country's population. In the Dominican Republic, black identity is much more complicated. Estimates of Afro-descent in the Dominican Republic range from about a quarter to nearly 90% of the population depending on whether the estimates include those who identify as “indio,” a group that includes many nonwhites and mixed-race individuals with African ancestry.
Source: Pew Research Center, Afro-Latino: A deeply rooted identity among U.S. Hispanics, March 1, 2016.