Latinos are disproportionately impacted by drinking and driving arrests and alcohol-related fatal crashes. Why, and how, these disparities occur remains unclear. The neighborhood environments that recent Latino immigrants encounter in their host communities can potentially influence health behaviors over time, including the propensity to engage in drinking and driving. This cross-sectional study utilizes a sample of 467 documented and undocumented adult recent Latino immigrants in the United States to answer the following research questions: (a) How do neighborhood-level factors, combined with social support, impact drinking and driving risk behaviors?; and (b) Does acculturative stress moderate the effects of those associations? Results indicate neighborhood-level factors (informal social control and social capital) have protective effects against drinking and driving risk behaviors via the mediating mechanism of social support. Acculturative stress moderated associations between neighborhood informal social control and social support, whereby the protective effects of informal social control on social support were not present for those immigrants with higher levels of acculturative stress. Our findings contribute to the limited knowledge of drinking and driving among Latino immigrants early in the immigration process and suggest that, in the process of developing prevention programs tailored to Latino immigrants, greater attention must be paid to neighborhood-level factors.

In 2011, Morehouse School of Medicine convened a summit in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to discuss issues related to the health status of people and communities in the Caribbean region. The summit provided a forum for transparent dialog among researchers, policymakers, and advocates from the Caribbean region and the United States. The summit’s theme—improving the region’s health outcomes through the adoption of effective practices linking health promotion and primary care, within the context of social and cultural determinants—called for a comprehensive and integrative model or a triangulation of methodologies to improve health outcomes. This article summarizes the recommendations of two workgroup sessions examining the challenges to improving health outcomes in the region and the opportunities to meet those challenges. The recommendations seek to develop action-oriented agendas that integrate research, practice, and policy. Outcomes of the summit highlight the importance of (a) community participation in planning interventions, (b) policymakers’ commitment to prioritizing health, and (c) Caribbean governments’ commitment to addressing the underlying social factors responsible for poor health outcomes.

Throughout the past decade, HIV rates in Florida—particularly South Florida, where many Latina seasonal farmworkers reside and work—have ranked among the highest in the nation. In this brief report, we delineate important lessons learned and preliminary findings from the implementation of the HIV prevention intervention Progreso en Salud (Progress in Health). Among the 114 Latina seasonal farmworker participants, there were significant increases from baseline to 6-month follow-up in the percentages of overall condom use, HIV testing, HIV/AIDS-related communications with friends, HIV knowledge, condom use self-efficacy, and correct use of condoms. Lessons learned from this study can be used to inform future HIV intervention strategies to improve the adoption and maintenance of HIV risk reduction behaviors among high-risk Latina seasonal workers and other high-risk underserved populations. Future research is needed to support our findings.

Latinos are more likely to delay HIV testing, present to care with an AIDS defining illness, and die within one year of learning their HIV-positive status than non-Latino blacks and whites. For this paper, we explore the role of partner-relationship characteristics and health behaviors, in predicting HIV testing among Latina adult women who engaged in risky sexual behaviors (i.e., unprotected vaginal and/or anal sex). Data from a convenience sample of 168 Latina adult women who engaged in risky sexual behavior in the year prior to assessment were analyzed for this paper. Rates and predictors of HIV testing among this sample were assessed after a five-year follow-up. Descriptive and analytical estimates include incidence rates and adjusted odds ratios (AOR) from multilevel models. At five-year follow-up, 63.7% (n = 107) women reported having been tested for HIV, of whom 12.2% (n = 13) were women who never tested before. Main reasons for not having been tested at follow-up included: low risk perception (62.1%) and trusting their partner(s)/being in a monogamous relationship/knowing their partner's HIV status (17.2%). Predictors of HIV testing included: age (AOR: 0.96; 95% CI = 0.92–0.99), provider endorsement of HIV testing (AOR: 4.59; 95% CI = 1.77–11.95), poor quality of their romantic relationships (AOR: 1.12; 95% CI = 1.03–1.26), and knowing the HIV sero-status of sexual partner (AOR: 3.61; 95% CI = 1.46–8.95). This study characterizes a group of Latina women at high risk for HIV infection and their HIV testing behaviors. Our findings underscore the need of increasing access to quality health-care services and HIV behavioral interventions, and to strengthen the adherence to HIV/sexually transmitted disease testing recommendations and guidelines among local health-care providers serving the Latino community in South Florida.

This cross-sectional study explored associations among (a) age of sexual debut; (b) drug abuse; and (c) sexual risk behaviors among an urban community-based sample of 158 predominantly immigrant, Latina adults. Time in the USA and having a mother who used drugs during the participants' childhood or adolescence were significantly related to age of sexual debut. In turn, younger ages of sexual debut were associated with drug abuse and more sexual risk behaviors (greater number of sexual partners, more frequent alcohol and drug use before or during sex, greater levels of intoxication from alcohol or drugs during sex). Implications for HIV/AIDS and drug abuse clinical services and future research with US Latina populations are discussed.