National Hispanic Heritage Month

National Hispanic Heritage Month (often called Hispanic Heritage Month) is observed from September 15th to October 15th. This time of observation started in 1965 as Hispanic Heritage Week with the leadership of President Lyndon Johnson, and further amplified in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan (National Archives, 2024), to acknowledge the many important contributions Hispanic Americans have made throughout history.

It’s also important to acknowledge the renal health disparities that still exist for minority populations in the United States, including Hispanic Americans. We typically see chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) occur at much higher rates among these populations, for example, with Hispanic Americans being at about a 2.3 times higher rate of occurrence than White Americans (https://www.health.harvard.edu).

The following information focuses on some of these differences in kidney disease rates for Hispanic Americans. The information in this article has been compiled from Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School (https://www.health.harvard.edu) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health (https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/).

(Retrieved from: https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/kidney-disease-and-hispanicslatinos)

• From 2017 to 2020, Hispanic/Latino adults were 8% more likely to have chronic kidney disease than U.S. adults overall.
• In 2022, Hispanics/Latinos were 10% less likely to die of kidney disease than the U.S. population overall.
• In 2023, Hispanic/Latino Medicare patients with diabetes were 2% more likely than Medicare patients with diabetes nationwide to receive an annual urinary microalbumin test, which checks for early kidney problems.

Occurrence

Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. (2025). National Health Interview Survey, Healthy People 2030: Reduce the proportion of adults with chronic kidney disease. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026, January 28). National diabetes statistics report (Crude Prevalence of Chronic Kidney Disease Among Adults Aged 18 Years or Older, Overall and by Race and Ethnicity, United States, 2021–2023). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026, January 28). National diabetes statistics report (Crude Prevalence of Chronic Kidney Disease Among Adults Aged 18 Years or Older, Overall and by Race and Ethnicity, United States, 2021–2023). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026, January 28). National diabetes statistics report (Crude Prevalence of Chronic Kidney Disease Among Adults Aged 18 Years or Older, Overall and by Race and Ethnicity, United States, 2021–2023). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Source: U.S. Renal Data System, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health. (2024). Incidence, prevalence, patient characteristics, and treatment modalities (Figures 1.1 and 1.4b). In 2024 USRDS Annual Data Report. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Mortality

Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. (2025). Deaths: Final data for 2022 (National Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 74, No. 4, Table 11). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. (2026). National Health Interview Survey, Healthy People 2030: Increase the proportion of adults with diabetes who get a yearly urinary albumin test. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Date Last Reviewed: September 2026