Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #115048

Alisa Maria Olshefsky, BA¹, Jesse Brennan, MA¹, María Luisa Zúñiga, PhD¹, Rosana Scolari, BA², and Estela Blanco¹. (1) School of Medicine, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, Dept. 0927, La Jolla, CA 92093, 619-243-7254, aolshefs@ucsd.edu, (2) San Ysidro Health Center, 4004 Beyer Boulevard, San Ysidro, CA 92173

Introduction: Limited information is available on the effects of acculturation on quality of life and barriers to entry into HIV medical care for Mexican-Americans in the San Diego/Tijuana border area. Understanding how these factors impact healthcare choices for people living with HIV/AIDS can help inform providers and policy makers on both sides of the border. Methods: 300 HIV+ clients were recruited from clinics in Southern California. Voluntary consent was obtained and a series of six survey instruments were completed on each person. The acculturation measure consisted of a thirteen item validated scale. Results: 245 Mexican-American respondents were predominately male (84%), homosexual (63%), reported ties to Mexico (95%), and lived in Mexico for at least 1-12 months in the past year (65%) Of the 200 respondents to the acculturation measure, 95 (47%) were un-acculturated to Anglo culture; 98 (48%) were found to have low acculturation levels, and only 9 (5%) were found to have medium or high acculturation. Low acculturated respondents reported a significantly higher quality of life than un-acculturated respondents (p<.05). A modest inverse correlation existed between the quality of life score and the number of perceived barriers to care (r=.21, p<.05), however, there was no significant difference between un-acculturated and low acculturated respondents in the number of perceived barriers to care. Conclusions: Those who scored a low to medium level of acculturation reported higher quality of life than un-acculturated respondents. The role of acculturation in perceived Quality of Life in HIV+ border-dwelling populations merits further consideration.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify border-specific health access issues faced by HIV+ Latinos who live or work along the Southern California border with Mexico.
• Discuss approaches to analyzing non-normally distributed data presented in the session.
• Articulate policy and programmatic challenges to providing care for persons living and working in the US-Mexico border region.

Keywords: Barriers to Care, HIV/AIDS

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.