Health-seeking Behavior and Health Services Use by Latino Men in a Rural Iowa Community

Abstract

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to describe and compare the health-seeking behavior and health services use by Latino men, linked to the meatpacking industry, within the context of the community in which they reside; and (b) to describe and analyze the capacity of one typical Iowa community to respond to its changing ethnic composition, specifically with the provision of care to this immigrant group.

Most of the studies examining Latino health-seeking behavior have focused on comparing Latinos with other ethnic groups, primarily with Whites and African Americans. However, without the benefit of intra-cultural comparisons, such studies fail to identify the subtle variation in health seeking strategies and the range of needs of within the Latino ethnic group, and thus are compromised in their capacity to guide an improve either practice or policy.

Using a methodological approach that combined a community field study with interviews of 20 Latino men residing in a Midwestern community, this study explored the impact of permanent migration in a rural state in which the ethnic composition was in the process of changing.

The findings of this study revealed that even within the Latino men who participated in this study there was intra-group variation in their health-seeking behavior. Like the Anglo population, there was a wide variation in how, when, and why they accessed health care that was based on their needs, their families, how others perceived their needs, their economic status, and the community capital they were able to access.