Models of acculturation and health behaviors among Latino immigrants to the US

A basic premise of much of the health research conducted with immigrant gro ups is that culturally based behaviors change over time as a result of accu lturation, i.e., interaction with the mainstream US culture. However, model s of acculturation have nor taken into account how group-specific character istics and the varying social and politic;ll contexts immigrant groups face may impact the acculturation process. In this study of 150 families, we ex amined the inter-relationship of indicators of acculturation among two Lati no groups to discern the impact of gender and country of origin on the rela tionship between variables. Results indicated that increased years of resid ence in the United States had the predictable impact of increased competenc e in English and increased use of English. bur had differing impact by coun try of origin on the cultural orientation of the respondents' environment a nd on ethnic identification. Also, gender was associated with differing lev els of English language use and with perceived social acceptance, such that malts used more English and reported less social acceptance than females. Loading separately from the language and cultural behavior variables, this factor, perceived social acceptance. merits research as a predictor of serv ice use given that respondents understood non-acceptance as resulting from being identified as Latino, not From behaving differently from the mainstre am. The differing patterns of association by country of origin and by gende r and the measurement issues these raise, highlight the importance of speci fying more complex models of acculturation than is done typically in resear ch with Latinos. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.