Description

Latina fertility is part of a historical political debate that has contemporarily shaped social policies around reproductive health. Yet correlates between different ethnic migration experiences of Latinas is understudied and homogenizes the reproductive health communication among generations, leaving out the realities that shape health outcomes for Salvadoran young girls and women. This qualitative study investigates: 1) how reproductive health messages are socialized within a sociocultural and political sphere 2) how changes in socialization processes impact reproductive health outcomes. Analyses of focus groups with 15 mother and daughter dyads from the Salvadoran diaspora in Los Angeles help understand the intergenerational messages about reproductive health that exist among the ethnic community. This project identifies changes in reproductive health communication and socialization messages and experiences that alter or maintain reproductive health care messages. The findings suggest that reproductive health communication and knowledge management is shaped by generational experiences in where socialization for health care seeking practices are influenced by migration and mass media. In addition, findings explore the elements of socialization around reproductive health communication when forced displacement, trauma from war and multi-border migration experiences are considered.