Abstract Body: Importance: Diet is essential to promote cardiometabolic health. Traditional Hispanic/Latino diets are rich in pulse (e.g., beans) and offer substantial benefits. However, factors such as acculturation and socioeconomic status may influence diet.
Objectives: To examine associations of segmented assimilation and language acculturation with diet in Hispanic/Latino adults.
Design/Setting: Cross-sectional analysis of 15,873 adults from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (2008-2011).
Exposure: We measured acculturation via segmented assimilation (combining education, language use, and ethnic identity into three paths: downward (low education and strong ethnic identity), selective (high education and strong ethnic identity), and classic (varied education and lower ethnic identity) and the Short Acculturation Scale for Hispanic (language use).
Main Outcomes and Measures: Diet measures derived from 24-hour dietary recalls, classified as daily pulses intake: no, low (< ½ cup), moderate (≥½ to ¾ cup), and high (> ¾ cup), and diet quality using the Alternative Healthy Eating Index. We tested the associations using multivariate logistic regression between acculturation measures and dietary outcomes.
Results: Participants were categorized into three segmented assimilation paths: downward (43.6%), selective (18.3%), classic (38.1%); and two language acculturation levels: low (61.9%) and high (38.1%). Mean diet quality scores (0-110 scale) were highest in the downward path (49.3), followed by selective (47.7) and classic (45.8) paths. Compared to the classic path, the odds of high daily pulse intake were higher in both downward (odds ratio [OR] = 3.94, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.17-4.90) and selective (OR = 3.98, 95%CI = 3.11-5.10) paths. By language acculturation, high-acculturated participants had lower mean diet quality (45.8 vs 48.8) and compared to high acculturated participants those with low acculturation had higher odds of high (OR=2.79 [95%CI=1.90,4.08]) pulse intake.
Conclusions and Relevance: Applying a segmented assimilation framework, beyond language preference alone, captured heterogeneity in diet quality and pulse consumption among Hispanic/Latino adults. These distinctions can guide culturally and educationally tailored nutrition programs, focusing not only on language but also in ethnic preferences and education attainment to promote healthier diets, with potential to improve cardiometabolic health in Hispanic/Latino populations.