Age, Health and Culture: An Examination of Health Among Spanish-Speaking Elderly.

Torres-Gil, Fernando

The study examined the utilization of health care facilities, the barriers to utilization, the need for health services, the coping mechanisms (family, religion, folk medicine, or other vehicles used by older persons to help cope with health problems), and the way in which the different phases (prevention, initial utilization, and maintenance) of the health cycle were affected by cultural and socioeconomic factors. Data were derived from three surveys conducted in Colorado, San Antonio, and East/Northeast Los Angeles. In Colorado, 1,420 persons 55 years and over were personally interviewed in late 1973 and early 1974. The San Antonio survey was conducted in 1973 with interviews of 200 older Chicanos (123 women and 77 men), 55 years and over. The Los Angeles survey, which provides the majority of the data presented in this study, was conducted in 1975 with 179 Mexican Americans 45 years and over. Among the findings were: lack of income and transportation, folk medicine, his culture, the family, and discouraging institutional policies (i.e., geographic location, language barriers, class-bound values, and culture-bound values) were identified as playing a role in the ability of elderly persons to use health care facilities; folk medicine, the family, and the church were used as coping mechanisms to assist the older persons in surviving a health system which tends to exclude him; and most did not seek medical services due to a lack of finances and/or insurance to pay the costs. (NQ)