Do Cultural Values Have a Role in Health Equity? A Study of Latina Mothers and Daughters

Objectives: Recently, there has been a call to better understand Latino health and arrive at effective approaches for achieving health equity via research focusing on the association between cultural factors and health. This study examined whether familism, a cultural value that emphasizes warm and close family relationships, would attenuate the negative effects that perceived stress, a psychological process that can worsen health, can have on two physical health indicators-number of health conditions and bodily pain. Method: Latina mothers (n = 85, M-age = 52.68, SD = 6.60) with Type 2 diabetes and their daughters (n = 86, M-age = 27.69, SD = 7.61) whose weight put them at risk for also developing the condition were recruited to take part in a larger intervention study aimed at improving weight loss/dietary intake. Participants completed measures of familism, perceived stress, health conditions, and bodily pain. Results: Results indicated that in the daughters, familism and perceived stress interacted to predict health conditions and bodily pain. As familism decreased, stress was associated with more health conditions and more bodily pain. These interactions were not significant for the mothers. Conclusions: First, familism has the potential to buffer the negative effect of stress in ways that are protective for health among Latinas at risk for diabetes. Second, this buffering effect has boundary conditions, suggesting that a better understanding is needed of how, for whom, and under what circumstances familism can be beneficial for health.