141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

290836
Transnational, social, and neighborhood ties and smoking among Latino immigrants: Does gender matter?

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 : 5:30 PM - 5:50 PM

Carmela Alcantara, Ph.D. , Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY
Kristine Molina, Ph.D. , Behavioral Medicine Research Center, University of Miami, Miami, FL
Ichiro Kawachi, MD, PhD , Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Objectives: We examined whether different markers of social ties theoretically relevant for immigrant health— transnational ties (i.e., economic remittances, number of return visits), social ties (i.e., friend support, family support), and neighborhood ties (i.e., neighborhood cohesion) — were independently associated with current smoking status. We also tested interactions to determine whether these associations were moderated by gender. Methods: We conducted a series of weighted logistic regression analyses using the Latino immigrant subsample (n = 1,629) of the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS). Results: Number of past-year return visits to the country-of-origin was positively associated with current smoker status. Gender moderated the association between economic remittances, friend support, and smoking. Remittance behavior had a protective association with smoking, and this association was particularly pronounced for Latino immigrant women. Friendship support lowered the odds of smoking among men, but not women. Conclusions: Our results underscore the growing importance of transnational networks for understanding Latino immigrant health and the gendered patterns of the associations between social resources and health risk behaviors.

Learning Areas:
Diversity and culture
Epidemiology
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Describe the prevalence of transnational ties in a nationally representative sample of Latino immigrants. Evaluate whether gender modified the effect of transnational ties on smoking in a sample of Latino immigrants.

Keywords: Smoking, Immigrants

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have a doctorate in Clinical Psychology and postdoctoral training in public health. I have published peer-reviewed empirical articles and chapters in the area of mental health disparities, Latino health, and the association between social adversity, psychological vulnerability, and mental health and physical health risk, both conjointly and independently. This research has been supported by federal grant funding.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.