Acculturation

Definitions of Acculturation

Acculturation has traditionally been defined as a linear movement away from the culture of origin and toward a new culture. The process of acclimating to a new culture, however, is increasingly recognized to be a complex and multidimensional one, in which individuals retain the values and practices from their culture of origin and adopt the new culture's values and practices to varying degrees. Recent research on biculturalism, for example, suggests that two cultural identities can be retained simultaneously and with varying degrees of psychological ease. Newer measures of acculturation, such as the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II (ARSMA-II), take this variation into account and can simultaneously generate measures of linear, multidimensional, and bicultural types of acculturation.

Measuring Acculturation

Acculturation measures ideally are tailored to the cultural adjustment experience that is being examined. For example, a researcher studying the health impact of Latino acculturation to the United States strives to measure the behaviors and beliefs that are most representative of Latino culture and U.S. European American culture. This type of measure, however, is not always practical in applied or epidemiologic settings. Thus, many researchers rely on proxies of acculturative change, such as an individual's country of birth, time spent in the new cultural environment, and the extent to which an individual prefers the language, media, and values of the new culture versus culture of origin. These proxies are often useful estimates of acculturation but lack the fine-grained distinctions of more multidimensional measures. Both direct [Page 2]and proxy measures, however, may fail to address the underlying causes of change in disease risk.

Health and Acculturation

Acculturation is relevant to many health processes, including (1) reproductive health (e.g., sexual behavior, experience and outcomes of pregnancy), (2) disease risk and management (e.g., diabetes and various forms of cancer), (3) psychosocial processes that affect health (e.g., stress and coping patterns), and (4) the development of effective prevention and intervention procedures.

Cultural beliefs and practices surrounding sex and pregnancy are related to differences in how individuals manage their reproductive health. Relative to U.S.-born European Americans, for example, less acculturated Latina immigrants to the United States are known to delay sex longer, have fewer partners over their life course, and be less likely to engage in sexually risky behaviors. Once pregnant, these women are more likely to have a positive attitude toward pregnancy and motherhood and have comparable birth outcomes to U.S.-born European Americans. With greater acculturation to the United States, Latinas begin to show a more adverse pattern that includes earlier sex, more partners, less positive attitudes toward pregnancy and motherhood, and poorer birth outcomes.

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