Table 4.

Characteristics and health behaviors of Latinos by gender and acculturation

	All Latinos, N = 3100		Latina women, N = 1787		Latino men, N = 1312
	Low acculturation	High acculturation	Low acculturation	High acculturation	Low acculturation	High acculturation
N	850	2250	466	1321	384	929
%	29.80	70.20	28.70	71.30	31.00	69.00
Mean age (se)	31.7 (.37)	39.2 (.34)	33.0 (.64)	39.3 (.60)	30.5 (.84)	39.1 (.54)
Education (median)	Some HS	HS graduate	Some HS	HS graduate	Some HS	HS graduate
Elementary or less (%)	40.0	18.5	41.1	19.7	39.4	17.2
Some high school (%)	19.3	16.7	19.9	17.3	19.0	16.2
High school graduate (%)	21.6	33.1	19.6	33.7	23.8	32.7
Some college (%)	10.8	21.0	11.7	19.2	10.0	23.2
College or more (%)	7.6	10.4	7.5	10.1	7.7	10.6
Income (median)	$15–16k	$20–25k	$15–16k	$19–20 k	$15–16 k	$20–25 k
Health behaviors N (%)	Yes
Current smoker	157 (18.6%)	507 (22.0%)	55 (9.6%)	272 (19.2%)	102 (27.5%)	235 (25.1%)
Moderate/high alcohol Intake	57 (6.2%)	246 (11.2%)	10 (1.4%)	45 (3.3%)	47 (10.9%)	201 (20.0%)
High BMI	369 (43.0%)	1157 (52.5%)	183 (39.1%)	608 (46.7%)	186 (46.9%)	549 (58.8%)
Recent exercise activity	376 (46.1%)	1430 (63.3%)	181 (36.6%)	837 (63.4%)	195 (55.4%)	593 (63.2%)

Note: The differences between low- and high-acculturated Latinos in age, education, and income are significant at p≤.001; HS = high school. All values, except for Ns, are weighted. The full sample of Latinos consisted of 3154 individuals, but 54 respondents who lacked data on place of birth or length of time in the United States were excluded from analyses concerning acculturation. Respondents were defined as having low acculturation if they were foreign-born and had lived in the United States for less than 15 years, or high acculturation if they were foreign-born and lived in the United States for more than 15 years or if they were US-born.

Data source: National Center for Health Statistics, National Health Interview Survey, 1991.