Feeling frugal: socioeconomic status,acculturation, and cultural health beliefs among women of Mexican descent

Psychosocial and socioeconomic variables are often confounded. The authors combined quantitative with grounded theory analysis to investigate influences of acculturation, socioeconomic status (SES), and cultural health beliefs on Mexican-descent women's preventive health behaviors. In 5 focus group interviews sampling across levels of acculturation and SES, women expressing more traditional Mexican health beliefs about breast cancer screening were of lower SES and were less U.S. acculturated. However, SES and acculturation were uncorrelated with screening behaviors. Qualitative analysis generated hypotheses about joint influences of SES and traditional health beliefs; for example, low-SES women may learn frugal habits as part of their cultural traditions that influence their health care decision making, magnifying SES-imposed structural restrictions on health care access.     

ARE ALL LATINAS THE SAME? PERCEIVED BREAST CANCER SCREENING BARRIERS AND FACILITATIVE CONDITIONS

In this article, we examine perceived breast cancer screening barriers and facilitative conditions for immigrant women from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, El Salvador, and South America ( N = 58). Focus groups conducted separately with women of each ancestry were analyzed using grounded theory methods. Identified barriers comprise secrecy, lack of information, embarrassment, fear, and distrust of health care providers. Perceived facilitative conditions include knowing the importance of early detection and noticing a symptom. We compare and contrast findings across ancestries and discuss how psychosocial and cultural factors could be better integrated into early detection programs. The women's high screening rates also suggest that breast cancer screening can be facilitated in this population by addressing institutional factors (e.g., access to health care, transportation).     

Globalization, Population Aging, and Ethics, Part II: Toward a Just Global Society

In Globalization, Population Aging, and Ethics, Part I (2001), we described how globalization, through the neoliberal policies imposed by international financial institutions (the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank) has substantially reduced the capacities of developing countries to meet the educational, economic, and healthcare needs of their growing populations. We also described how these needs will increase over the next several decades with the huge growth of the elderly population across Asia and Latin America. We concluded our analysis with a discussion of the ethical implications of this increasing discrepancy between resource capacity and human needs in the developing world and two perspectives (Rawls's theory of justice and liberation philosophy, 2000) that could help sharpen the debate over the ethics of globalization. In this article, we summarize our analysis and discussion of Part I and include new information from additional sources. We then extend our discussion of the ethical implications of this analysis by describing a range of political and policy options that we think are consistent with the ethical perspective suggested in Part I and that have the potential to help reduce the widening gap between resource capacity and human need in many developing countries.     

The Effect of Stress on Spontaneous Nest Leaving Behavior in the Mouse: An Improved Model of Stress-Induced Behavioral Pathology

The present experiments were conducted to develop a more sensitive and reliable model of stress-induced behavioral pathology in the mouse. Male mice were housed singly in nest cages connected to either a circular tunnel, a recreational cage or a large box with food foraging apparatus. Spontaneous nocturnal out of nest activity or food foraging behavior in these environments was continuously monitored for a two week period during which time the effects of stress were examined. It was found that both repeated restraint and aggression stress markedly and persistently reduced out of nest nocturnal activity or food foraging behavior in all 3 environments but did not alter activity in a novel open field or plus maze or food or saccharin intake in the nest cage. In a preliminary experiment the reduction in out of nest activity by stress was attenuated by prior chronic treatment with the antidepressant, desmethylimipramine. Plasma corticosterone was elevated immediately after aggression stress but reduced 5 hr after chronic aggression stress. The reduction in activity did not appear the result of increased anxiety as measured by spontaneous risk assessment behavior in the nest. It is concluded that the decrease in out of nest activity after stress in the present studies models a withdrawn behavioral state and may be due to either or both a decrease in appetitive motivation to leave the nest or an increased aversion to the external environment which does not apparently involve anxiety.