Tamara Dubowitz ^1*, Stephanie A. Smith-Warner ², Dolores Acevedo-Garcia ², S.V. Subramanian ², Karen E. Peterson ²

¹ RAND Corporation
² Harvard School of Public Health

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dubowitz{at}rand.org.

	Abstract

There are limited studies on the association of diet with immigrant status, particularly those that have adjusted for multiple sociodemographic and contextual influences. Among a group of 662 postpartum women in the Boston metropolitan area and western Massachusetts who were eligible for Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children, those who were foreign-born and lived in the United States for 4 or fewer years consumed more fruits and vegetables (2.5 more servings daily) than did native-born women; this difference diminished with longer US residence. After we adjusted for other covariates, we found that White women consumed 1 fewer serving than did Latinas, and those who spoke both English and Spanish at home consumed 1.4 more servings than did English-only speakers.

Key Words: Immigration, Maternal and Infant Health, Nutrition/Food, Hispanics/Latinos, Socioeconomic Factors, Women's Health

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