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Acculturation and cigarette smoking among pregnant Hispanic women residing in the United States.

Detjen MG, Nieto FJ, Trentham-Dietz A, Fleming M, Chasan-Taber L

Department of Population Health Sciences, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin, Madison 53726, USA. mgdetjen@wisc.edu

OBJECTIVES: We explored whether higher levels of acculturation were associated with higher rates of cigarette smoking among pregnant Hispanic women residing in the United States. METHODS: We evaluated data from the Latina Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Study, a prospective study of 1231 Hispanic prenatal care patients conducted from 2000 to 2004 in Massachusetts. Self-reported data on acculturation, cigarette smoking, and covariates were collected by bilingual interviewers using a questionnaire. We conducted logistic regression multivariate analyses to examine the impact of acculturation level on the odds of smoking. RESULTS: Overall, 21% of women reported smoking during pregnancy. Acculturation was associated with elevated smoking rates in pregnant Hispanic women. US-born Hispanic women who preferred English had more than twice the odds of smoking compared with Puerto Rican or foreign-born Hispanic women who preferred Spanish (odds ratio [OR]=2.76, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.36, 5.63). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that higher-acculturated Hispanic women living in the United States are more likely to smoke cigarettes during pregnancy than are less-acculturated Hispanic women. These results will inform interventions aimed at reducing cigarette smoking during pregnancy among US Hispanic women.

Published 24 October 2007 in Am J Public Health, 97(11): 2040-7.
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