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SALT LAKE CITY — Too often, suicide and mental health in the Latino and Spanish-speaking communities are treated as taboo topics, subjects to be avoided.

“That is something that they don’t talk about,” said Edwin Espinel, public information officer for the Utah Department of Health and Human Services.

Silence can perpetuate such problems, though, and in a bid to put the spotlight on the varied health issues impacting Utah’s Spanish-speaking community, several nonprofit organizations have launched a Spanish-language podcast focused on health. The aim of “Su Salud al Día” is to promote public discussion of health matters impacting members of the Spanish-speaking community and point them to available resources.

“We hope this addresses that so we can break the stigma,” said Espinel, who’s particularly focused on raising debate about mental health matters. “The more we talk about it, the more normalized (discussion) gets, and then we can address those issues.”

While Espinel and the Utah Department of Health and Human Services are particularly focused on suicide and mental health, the aim of the weekly podcast, launched last month, is to cover a range of health-related topics. Other podcast sponsors include University of Utah Health, University of Utah Health Plans, Live On Utah, which focuses on suicide prevention, and the 988 Crisis Line, which operates a suicide hotline.

“Every episode we’ll have guests, experts in different fields of health care, like physical health, diabetes, pregnancy, mental health, of course. We’re going to try to cover all the health care needs that the Hispanic community has in this state,” said Pablo Tellechea, an independent journalist in Utah who serves as podcast host. Topics in the handful of episodes that have already aired have included the dangers of opioids, measles and mental health challenges specific to the immigrant community.

Su Salud al Día is available via YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts and is to run for a year. Tellechea, Espinel and others involved took part in a public kickoff event on Wednesday at the Unity Center in Salt Lake City, which also served as the backdrop for the taping of four forthcoming episodes on mental health issues.

Fernando Huerta, spokesman for University of Utah Health, said a central aim of the podcast is to direct listeners to resources that are already available.

The speakers invited to participate in the podcasts help highlight “where to begin the conversations, what help is available, where they can go, things like that,” said Huerta, who discussed the new University of Utah Health hospital planned for West Valley City for an earlier podcast episode. The hope is to let the community know “that there are people that speak Spanish (in Utah’s health care sector), there are people that will welcome you.”

Espinel emphasized that the podcast is meant as a bullhorn of sorts to convey information about existing offerings. All the guests will speak Spanish and come from the University of Utah Health system, nonprofit groups and more. “We are not creating resources. What we’re doing is bringing education and information to the Latino community so they can learn about the existing resources,” he said.

Nayeli Hernandez, spokeswoman for the University of Utah, emphasized that the podcast features experts familiar with the specific needs of the Latino community.

“Health outcomes are better when people receive information in their native languages and from providers who understand their culture,” she said.

University of Utah Health already provides Spanish-language health information, via a health blog, among other things, Hernandez said. The new podcast “adds another layer of communication, one that’s more personal and engaging, and it’s something we haven’t seen offered in this way in Utah before,” Hernandez said.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.