Should “acculturation” be a variable in health research? A critical review of research on US Hispanics

Abstract

Acculturation has become a popular variable in research on health disparities among certain ethnic minorities, in the absence of serious reflection about its central concepts and assumptions. Key constructs such as what constitutes a culture, which traits pertain to the ethnic versus "mainstream" culture, and what cultural adaptation entails have not been carefully defined. Using examples from a systematic review of recent articles, this paper critically reviews the development and application of the concept of acculturation in US health research on Hispanics. Multiple misconceptions and errors in the central assumptions underlying the concept of acculturation are examined, and it is concluded that acculturation as a variable in health research may be based more on ethnic stereotyping than on objective representations of cultural difference.

Immigrant Generation and Diabetes Risk Among Mexican Americans: The Sacramento Area Latino Study on Aging

“…63–65 With regard to existing measures of acculturation, particularly those that rely on language use or preference, socioeconomic factors are likely to confound the relationship between acculturation level and health. 64 The addition of SES factors to our model slightly (6%) attenuated the association between the acculturation measure used and diabetes risk, and so our study provides evidence to support this contention.…”

The Association of Duration of Residence in the United States with Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Among South Asian Immigrants

“…However, large, public-use datasets have few face-valid acculturation measures, and temporal measures have been used as proxies for acculturation in other studies [33]. We should note that some researchers have criticized the use of acculturation in health research given the conceptual and methodological difficulties, as well as its limitation as a modifiable factor in the promotion of cardiovascular health [81,82]. Our study tried to control for modifiable factors, such as socioeconomic status and health insurance coverage.…”

Implicit out-group preference is associated with eating disorders symptoms amongst Emirati females

“…Acculturation generally refers to a process of cultural change resulting from the meeting of two cultures (Hunt, Schneider, & Comer, 2004;Spindler & Spindler, 1963). In an increasingly globalized world, the health implications of acculturation have attracted widespread scientific attention (Koneru, Weisman, Flynn, & Betancourt, 2007).…”