Mexican American women's struggle to create health

Abstract

Mexican Americans constitute one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. Within Mexican American families, women are the primary caretakers and are responsible for managing family health. Many activities of health work fall within the household and domestic spheres. These activities include, providing a clean, safe environment providing nutritious foods, teaching hygienic practices, diagnosing and treating illnesses, and deciding when to seek outside health care. Until recently, household health work was not recognized as a factor in health knowledge and had been excluded from the discourse of health and healing. The purpose of this study was to describe health perceptions and health production among Mexican American women. This research was a descriptive ethnographic study of the health perceptions and health production of a sample of 13 English speaking Mexican American women. Informants participated in three in-depth interviews conducted over a two to four month period. The Household Production of Health was the conceptual model that guided this research and the World Health Organization definition of health was used to frame questions about health perceptions. Data analysis was directed towards identifying themes and sub-themes that were organized into categories that answered the three research questions. The informants integrated physical and mental health into an overarching concept of being healthy. Health included maintenance of the physical body, the mind, and the spirit. The informants identified a variety of health producing and help-seeking activities that were contextualized throughout their lives and were consistent with their health perceptions. In addition to outside employment, the informants took primary responsibility for health creation. Their roles were predominantly domestic in nature and included parenting, providing for health care, and managing and maintaining the household. This research has significance for nursing in three areas: (a) it explicates the importance of routine activities in health maintenance; (b) it provides a framework for community health nurses to analyze the entirety of health activities that occur within the household; and, (c) it suggests the importance of focusing health education on wellness behaviors such as stress reduction and coping strategies.