Contextualizing the Latino experience: A new perspective of Latino health disparities and policy implications

To reduce health disparities we must understand how changes in social policy influence generational differences in life experiences with implications for health. For Latino populations, it is important to examine how health is linked to policies and sociopolitical contexts that influence both the experience of immigrants as well as the experience of U.S. residents. The aim of this study is to examine Latino health disparities using a contextually-based approach, further disentangling the heterogeneity of the Latino population, and moving the Latino health agenda forward. In this study, the author presents a critical review of articles related to Latino health disparities, comparing past methodological approaches to capturing prevalence and incidence of health outcomes as well as previously considered theories and perspectives of Latino health. The author concludes that methodological limitations and population stratifications for inter- and intra-group comparisons have been a major limiting factor in this field of research. The author then conceptualizes a framework for Latino health disparities that contextualizes the Latino experience within a sociopolitical context, examining how education and immigration policies affect early educational support and networking experiences that influence lifetime circumstance, as well as structural influences and experiences with unfair treatment that complicate the pathways to health and disease across Latino populations. Understanding how historical trends in policy and sociopolitical context have influenced Latino health is critical to understanding the social, political and contextual factors that will influence—and can promote—contemporary Latino health.