Segmentation of Mexican-Heritage Immigrants: Acculturation Typology and Language Preference in Health Information Seeking

With the fast growing number of Mexican immigrants in the United States, more attention is needed to understand the relationship between acculturation and language preference in health information seeking. Latent class analysis provides one useful approach to understanding the diversity in sample of Mexican immigrants (N = 238). Based on 13 linguistic, psychological and behavioral indicators for acculturation, four discrete subgroups were characterized: (1) Less acculturated, (2) Moderately acculturated, (3) Highly acculturated, (4) Selectively bicultural. A Chi-square test revealed that three sub-groups were significantly different in language preference when seeking health information. Less acculturated and moderately acculturated groups sought health information in Spanish, whereas the highly acculturated group preferred English for health information. Selectively bicultural group preferred bilingual health information. Implications for health campaign strategies using audience segmentation are discussed.