Examining Latino Health Status Within the Context of History, Politics, and Class Status in California

The purpose of this study is to examine Latino health status and BMI within the context of California and U.S. history, the politics of immigration, and the social status of this group. By laying out a conceptual framework that explains why Latinos are not a homogenous group and how Mexicans, Cubans and Puerto Ricans have had differing immigration trajectories to the U.S., differences in health and mechanisms related to health will be considered in a new light. The cross-sectional, 2005 California Health Interview Study (CHIS), will be used as the empirical basis for the analyses. The 2005 CHIS data-set consists of 43,020 respondents. CHIS is a population-based random-digit dial telephone survey of California's population conducted every other year since 2001 and it is the largest health survey conducted in any state in the U.S. Independent variables that will be reviewed and tested in a model predicting health status include: the concept of acculturation and varying related measures such as years lived in the U.S. for the foreign born, an alternative idea to that of acculturation that posits Latino cultural patterns as protective, the health behavior of soda consumption, education, poverty level, and citizenship. Findings on health status among Latinos in California will be important for the rest of the nation facing unprecedented growth of the Latino population.