Latino Health Behavior: An Exploratory Analysis of Health Risk andHealth Protective Factors in a Community Sample

摘要

Background. Demographic and cultural factors have been found to affect healthbehaviors in Latinos in both positive and negative ways, but few studies haveexamined the impact of culture and adherence to normson health behaviors in a mixed gender community sample of Latinos. Of particularinterest was if positive ( ) or negative aspects of would affect Latino health behaviors. Methods. Apaper survey was given to a community sample of Latinos in northern Utah toexplore the variables that affect both health promoting and health riskingbehaviors in this cross-sectional study (final N = 144 participants). Results.Life satisfaction, self-reported health, health insurance status, languagepreference, and gender were significantly related to overall health score.Surprisingly, the cultural variables of fatalism, , and were nonsignificant in all analyses.Conclusion. Access to health care mediated by health insurance and self-reportedhealth status may be the most effective way to encourage Latinos to engage inprotective health behaviors.