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Abstract
Despite its popularity, such freewheeling applications of culture cannot be presumed to be innocuous nor justifiable. We examined the concept of "culture," and more specifically "acculturation," in current literature on Hispanic health.3 We found that data interpretation in these articles commonly invokes widely held cultural stereotypes about Hispanics to explain health status. These studies almost never include indicators of the specific cultural traits in question, but instead assume that by knowing someone's ethnic identity or national origin, their beliefs and behaviours can reliably be inferred. But is this a reasonable assumption? What do we know, for example, about the family life of people who happened to choose "Mexican" or "non-Hispanic white" on a survey form? These groups are highly heterogeneous, and cultural beliefs and behaviours do not track well with ethnicity.4-6