Acculturation and perinatal health outcomes among rural women of Mexican descent

Acculturation Influences Postpartum Eating, Activity, and Weight Retention in Low-Income Hispanic Women

“…Our findings that women with higher acculturation had higher PPWR is similar to studies of weight gain during pregnancy. 22,35,36 Hispanic women residing in a U.S.-Mexico border county, a measure of lower acculturation, had a lower risk of excess GWG than women residing in a nonborder county. 36 Hispanic women born in the U.S., a commonly used measure of acculturation, gained more weight during pregnancy than women born outside the U.S. 22,35 A recent study among Puerto Rican women in Massachusetts measured acculturation using the Psychological Acculturation Scale and measures of generation in the U.S., place of birth, and language preference.…”

“…22,35,36 Hispanic women residing in a U.S.-Mexico border county, a measure of lower acculturation, had a lower risk of excess GWG than women residing in a nonborder county. 36 Hispanic women born in the U.S., a commonly used measure of acculturation, gained more weight during pregnancy than women born outside the U.S. 22,35 A recent study among Puerto Rican women in Massachusetts measured acculturation using the Psychological Acculturation Scale and measures of generation in the U.S., place of birth, and language preference. 22 They found that women with grandparents and at least one parent born in Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic gained, on average, 2.2 kg and 0.9 kg, respectively, more over the course of pregnancy than women who were born in Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic; however, no association was found using other acculturation measures.…”

Prenatal Care in the Paso del Norte Border Region

“…Accommodation to the majority culture has also been demonstrated to have a relationship with an increase in risk for certain birth outcomes, such as LBW, among Hispanic women who deliver in the United States. 18,[54][55][56][57] Bryd et al, 58 who studied breastfeeding intention and practice among Hispanic women from the same US/Mexico border community, found that the most acculturated women were the least likely to have breast fed previously or to intend to breast feed their newborn. Language spoken, read, and written, and place of birth (parents and respondent) are core elements that appear within the various tools available for measurement of acculturation, 58,59 and therefore they were selected as proxy measures of the concept in this study.…”

Participation in Prenatal Care in the Paso del Norte Border Region: The Influence of Acculturation

“…Acculturation was determined by a proxy measure obtained from an aggregate score combining the variables of language spoken, read, and written, and the place of birth of the respondent and her parents (Table 1). These two factors are core elements that appear within the various approaches to measurement of the construct used in recent studies (evidence in support of content validity) 17,47–49 and also within tools recently developed for measurement of the construct (construct validity) among Hispanic populations, 50 specifically, the two‐factor Acculturation Index 51,52 and the Acculturation Rating Score for Mexican Americans‐II 53 . The acculturation measure constructed for this study yielded a range of scores from 1 (those who were more closely related to their Mexican American heritage through language and nativity) through 10 (those whose language or nativity enabled their integration within the [dominant] American culture).…”