Traditions and alcohol use: A mixed-methods analysis.

Abstract

An integrative mixed-methods analysis examined traditional beliefs as associated with beliefs about self-care during pregnancy and with alcohol abstinence among young adult women from two rural U.S.-Mexico border communities. Quantitative (measured scale) variables and qualitative thematic variables generated from open-ended responses served as within-time predictors of these health-related outcomes. A weaker belief that life is better in big cities was associated with stronger self-care beliefs during pregnancy. Also, a weaker belief that small towns offer tranquil environments was associated with total abstinence from alcohol. Regarding the Hispanic Paradox, these results suggest that a critical appreciation of cultural traditions can be protective, as this avoids stereotypical or idyllic views of urban or rural lifeways, and promotes self-protective beliefs and behaviors.Keywords family traditions; rural lifestyle; mixed methods; Hispanic paradox; alcohol use The "Hispanic Paradox"Among women from rural communities, traditional lifeways (traditionalism) may promote certain healthy outcomes (Coe, Attakai, Papenfuss, Giuliano, Martin, & Nuvayestewa, 2004); by contrast, a loss of cultural traditions during the process of acculturative change may promote disease or disorder. Recent Hispanic health research has identified an Hispanic paradox among low-acculturated Hispanics/Latinos,1 that is characterized by unexpectedly lower rates of adverse health outcomes observed among the least acculturated Mexican immigrants relative to their more acculturated Mexican American peers. This paradox has been observed within three health-related areas: the perinatal health of Hispanic/Latina women, mortality rates from cardiovascular disease, and rates of psychiatric disorder (Vega et al., 1998).Perinatal studies of low-birth-weight infants (Balcazar, Krull, & Peterson, 2001; FuentesAfflick, Hessol, & Pérez-Stable, 1999;Gould, Madan, Qin, & Chavez, 2003) NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript to more acculturated and affluent Mexican American women. Similarly, in communitybased studies of diagnosed psychiatric disorders, low-acculturated migrant Mexican farmworkers, when compared with native-born Mexican Americans and with non-Hispanic White Americans, exhibited the lowest rates of psychiatric disorder (Alderete, Vega, Kolody, & AguilarGaxiola, 2000). Some investigators have argued that methodological flaws produce these paradoxical effects (Palloni & Morenoff, 2001;Smith & Bradshaw, 2006), whereas others have argued that observed confounds do not obviate these paradoxical effects (Morales, Mara, Kington, Valdez, & Excarce, 2002). The recent assertion by Smith and Bradshaw (2006) that the Hispanic paradox does not exist is based on a study that uses a Spanish surname as a proxy measure for Hispanic ethnicity and also defines health advantage narrowly by using mortality as their major health outcome. Unfortunately, several of these studies have not examined deeper aspects of culture, ...

Assessment of acculturation in minority health research

“…Some authors have suggested mixed qualitative-quantitative methods would better capture acculturation’s multifaceted effect on health (Castro et al, 2010a; Castro & Coe, 2007; Edwards & Lopez, 2006; Kagawa Singer et al, 2016; Sussner et al, 2008); however, these methods are incompatible with the conventional biomedical research paradigm. Better options include the use of bi-dimensional instruments analyzed as two continuous predictive variables, or administering a questionnaire and categorizing individuals based on threshold scores or as naturally-occurring groups based on cluster analysis.…”

The Effects of Parental Acculturation and Parenting Practices on the Substance Use of Mexican-Heritage Adolescents from Southwestern Mexican Neighborhoods

“…Hispanics who endorse traditional Hispanic and Mexican cultural values have been found to endorse more conventional attitudes toward gender roles, as contrasted with Hispanics who hold the more modern cultural values prevalent within mainstream U.S. culture (Castro, Stein, & Bentler, 2009; Kulis, Marsiglia, & Nagoshi, 2010). These conventional gender values are particularly evident among Mexican and Mexican American parents and tend to erode with increasing acculturation toward the more egalitarian gender role values of the dominant U.S. culture (Castro & Coe, 2007). The conventional belief that girls are more vulnerable and in greater need of protection (Archer & Lloyd, 2002) may prompt Hispanic parents to provide greater supervision of girls than boys, which in turn would be expected to increase the effect of parenting practices for girls compared with boys.…”

Wealth Mobility of Families Raising Children in the Twenty-First Century

“…We identified and labeled thematic categories by conducting open coding (Strauss and Corbin 1990), discovering and naming emergent categories. We matched these categories with quantitative measures in the PSID, converting qualitative thematic categories into numeric thematic variables (Castro and Coe 2007), and using proxies where we were unable to locate an equivalent variable. The results of the quantitative analyses helped inform the magnitude and significance of the effect of different factors on wealth mobility over time.…”