10.1177/0886260504271582JOURNAL OF INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE / May 2005Garcia et al. / ACCULTU ATION AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE Acculturation and Reported Intimate Partner Violence Among Latinas in Los Angeles

This study sought to understand the relationship between acculturation and report-ing intimate partner violence (IPV) among Latinas. A cross-sectional interviewer-administered survey was conducted at public health care clinics throughout Los Angeles County. Logistic regression was used to estimate the effect of acculturation on reporting IPV. An increasing trend of reporting IPV was observed among Latinas who were more acculturated (chi-square = 41.02, p =.0006). Highly acculturated Latinas were more likely to report IPV compared with least acculturated Latinas (prevalence odds ration = 2.18, 95 % confidence level = 0.98, 4.89) and moderately acculturated Latinas were more likely to report IPV compared with least accultur-ated Latinas (prevalence odds ration = 1.29, 95 % confidence level = 0.69, 2.43). Culturally competent IPV prevention programs may be the key to significantly reduc-ing the number of women exposed to this serious public health problem