Acculturation and its association with health-risk behaviors in a rural Latina population

Purpose: To evaluate the performance of proxy measures of acculturation and to examine the association between acculturation and selected health-risk behaviors. Methods: Participants were 1062 Latina pregnant women who received prenatal care at clinics in San Joaquin County, California between 1999 and 2001. We used the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve to characterize the sensitivity and specificity of proxy measures and regression analysis to examine health-risk behaviors. Results: Using the ARSMA-II short version scale as a reference, age at immigration had the highest percentage of correctly classified individuals. Acculturation was significantly associated with a lifetime history of substance use, risky sexual behavior, low fruit consumption, and high fast-food meal consumption. Conclusions: Acculturation is an important predictor of health-risk behavior among women. Further research is needed to better understand the phenomenon and to avert associated adverse health consequences.