Mi Familia Entera: Contraceptive Use Among Spanish-Speaking Mothers of Young Children.

OBJECTIVES: To characterize contraceptive method use and satisfaction among Spanish-speaking Latina immigrants who attend their child's well care visit. METHODS: Spanish-speaking women whose youngest child was ≤ 4 years old completed an orally-administered Spanish-language survey in a pediatric clinic (N = 194). Survey items were based on previously published contraceptive use assessments among diverse populations. We used chi-square and Fisher exact test to describe maternal characteristics by contraceptive method effectiveness categories: Tier 1, most effective methods (hormonal implant, intrauterine device, tubal ligation, and vasectomy); Tier 2, very effective methods (hormonal injection, oral contraceptive pill, hormonal patch, and hormonal ring); Tier 3, effective methods (condoms), and no method. RESULTS: 34% of women were using a Tier 1 method, 40% were using a Tier 2 method, and 17% had unmet contraceptive need (no pregnancy intention, no birth control); 84% were satisfied with their current method and 82% of women were uninsured. Tier 2 method or no method users were more likely than women using a Tier 1 method to have children < 9 months old (X2 (6, N = 190) = 20.4, p = .002). CONCLUSIONS: Latina immigrants with young children who attend their child's pediatric visit are mostly using effective contraceptives and are satisfied with their method. A culturally supportive medical home and access to no-cost long-acting reversible contraceptives through a temporary private grant likely contributed to high contraceptive use and satisfaction in our study. Describing maternal contraceptive use among Latina immigrant mothers can inform future equitable, culturally tailored, approaches to pediatric maternal contraceptive need screening.

Community partnerships in emerging immigrant communities: Lessons learned addressing Latino childhood weight disparities.

Latino children have disproportionately high childhood obesity rates, and U.S.-born Latino children of immigrant parents experience higher overweight/obesity rates than other Latino children. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) to engage Latino immigrant families and Latino-serving community organizations is one mechanism to address the lack of effective and practical interventions addressing childhood obesity disparities among Latino children. We present lessons learned from applying CBPR methods to a partnership focused on developing a child obesity treatment program for Latino immigrant families in an emerging Latino immigrant destination to inform the use of CBPR methods in other partnerships in emerging immigrant communities. We encountered challenges working within the partnership related to entrenched sociopolitical hierarchies that were not inclusive of immigrant community leaders, capacity building for partners with limited literacy and administrative experience, and how best to use complementary methods and frameworks to support a community-engaged research process. This work is one way to promote shared learning among the community of researchers using CBPR and other engagement methods to partner with emerging immigrant communities. Together with our community partners, we can identify strategies to more effectively partner to promote health equity and work toward social justice for all members of our communities.