The impact of health and health insurance literacy on access to care for Hispanic/Latino communities.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the impact of health literacy (HL) and health insurance literacy (HIL) on health insurance status and access to health care services for Spanish-speaking communities living in Massachusetts.

Methods: A total of 139 surveys (descriptive, knowledge-based HIL questions, and Short Assessment of Health Literacy in Spanish) and 30 semi-structured interviews were collected and analyzed using chi-square, Mann-Whitney U test, and logistic regression analysis.

Results: The majority of participants had inadequate HL (56%) and HIL (93%).

A pilot test of a church-based intervention to promote multiple cancer-screening behaviors among Latinas.

We assessed the feasibility, acceptability, and initial impact of a church-based educational program to promote breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening among Latinas ages 18 years and over. We used a one-group pre-/post-evaluation within a low-income, Latino Baptist church in Boston, MA. Participants completed interviewer-administered assessments at baseline and at the end of the 6-month intervention.

Culturally responsive health promotion in puerto rican communities: a structuralist approach.

This literature review discusses the value of the structuralist approach as an integrated theoretical and methodological framework for participatory cultural assessments designed to capture the cultural dynamics of those affected by health disparities. Drawing from principles of the Lévi-Straussian strand of structural anthropology found in contemporary cultural studies, and using the Puerto Rican cultural experience as an example, the authors present the distinction between deep and surface structures of cultural knowledge and meaning and highlight information-processing and behavioral systems influenced by the complexity of cognitive and social representations of cultural structures. To understand and address the deeply rooted web of ideology, norms, and practices that influence health decision making and behavioral responses, the authors show the need for ethnographic narrative inquiry beyond surface manifestations of culture.

Testing the feasibility of an interactive learning styles measure for U.S. Latino adults with type 2 diabetes and low literacy.

This study designed and piloted an interactive measure to assess learning preferences of Latinos in the United States with diabetes and limited literacy. The measure utilized interactive learning activities to represent four learning styles: visual (seeing), kinesthetic (doing), affective (feeling/sensing), and cognitive (thinking), targeting four diabetes self-management behaviors: choosing healthy foods; understanding portion sizes; distinguishing foods to eat often/sometimes/rarely; and limiting fat. Quantitative data were collected using the Spanish Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (S-TOFHLA).

Diabetes self-management: perspectives of Latino patients and their health care providers.

Unlabelled: Lifestyle modification programs tailored to experience, culture, psychosocial characteristics, and world-view can improve knowledge, self-care behaviors, and glucose control among Latinos with diabetes. Few data exist, however, on improving diabetes self-management among Latinos. In addition, views and practices of practitioners caring for these patients have received little attention.

Assessing health in an urban neighborhood: community process, data results and implications for practice.

This article examines the community process and data results of a health assessment conducted in an urban neighborhood of a middle-size city in Western Massachusetts. It describes the four-stage development process of the Health Assessment Project (HAP), a collaboration of the UMASS School of Public Health faculty and students, community based organizations and youth residents: (1) planning with a contemporary participatory approach, (2) implementing the data collection with traditional survey methodology, (3) tailoring the data analysis for a presentation at a community forum and report, and (4) incorporating the community's reaction to data results. In addition, it presents selected data results on health conditions of individual household members and perceived community health concerns and resources.