Concept Mapping As a Tool to Visualize Strategies for Latino Immigrant Health Prevention and Intervention

Introduction: As the population of Latino immigrants in the U.S. rises, a better understanding of their unique healthcare needs is a critical public health concern, especially in pre-emerging gateways which are communities in the U.S. experiencing rapid immigration growth yet do not have infrastructure to sufficiently support immigrants’ healthcare needs. Prevention researchers need specific tools to engage community members in health prevention and intervention development to ensure that efforts are contextually appropriate for immigrant populations. Concept mapping (CM) is mixed-method, participatory methodology that has a long history in health research (Szaflarski et al., 2015; Vaughn et al., 2013), but the potential of concept mapping as a process to engage immigrant communities is less well known.

Methods: A community-academic research team used concept mapping methodology with over 200 Latino immigrants and Latino-serving providers to identify and prioritize prevention and intervention strategies to address obesity, stress and coping, and healthcare for Latino immigrants in a nontraditional migration city. CM follows six steps: 1) preparation, 2) idea generation, 3) structuring, 4) representation, 5) interpretation and 6) utilization. A community planning session was held to share the final concept maps and vote on strategies.

Results: The obesity concept map was comprised of seven clusters that included personal responsibility, healthy eating and exercise, community information, and culturally appropriate health services. The stress and coping concept map also contained seven clusters that ranged from individual contributors to stress to stress management strategies within Latino families and communities. The healthcare navigation concept map contained eight clusters that generally suggested the need for increased access to linguistically and culturally appropriate healthcare options that are respectful, non-discriminatory and relationship-focused. Overall, the concept maps and results from the planning session emphasized a community lay health worker model to connect the Latino immigrant community with resources to address obesity, stress and coping, and healthcare navigation.

Conclusions: Concept maps allowed for the visualization of health prevention and intervention strategies prioritized by the larger Latino immigrant community. Concept maps revealed the appropriate content for health prevention and intervention efforts as well as the process community members preferred for delivery.

References:

Szaflarski M, Vaughn LM, McLinden D, Wess Y, Ruffner A. Using concept mapping to mobilize a Black faith community to address HIV. International Public Health Journal. 2015;7(1):117.

Vaughn LM, Jacquez F, McLinden D. The use of concept mapping to identify community-driven intervention strategies for physical and mental health. Health Promotion Practice. 2013;14(5):675-685.