title: Acculturation and its association with health-risk behaviors in a rural Latina population.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences, University of California, Davis 95616-8638, USA.
authors.forename: Olivia C
authors.initials: OC
authors.lastname: Kasirye
authors.forename: Julia A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Walsh
authors.forename: Patrick S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Romano
authors.forename: Laurel A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Beckett
authors.forename: Jorge A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Garcia
authors.forename: Brenda
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Elvine-Kreis
authors.forename: Jeffrey W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Bethel
authors.forename: Marc B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Schenker
mesh_terms: D000069:Acculturation; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002140:California; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D016015:Logistic Models; D008429:Maternal Welfare; D011247:Pregnancy; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012423:Rural Health