10.1177/0890334403261129 ARTICLE Anderson et al Social Capital, Acculturation, and Br eastfeeding Among Puerto Ricans Social Capital, Acculturation, and Breastfeeding Initiation Among Puerto Rican Women in the United States

To examine reasons for not breastfeeding, and to identify factors associated with ever breast-feeding among Puerto Rican women, a retrospective study was done using a convenience sam-ple of 161 low-income Latino women with children younger than 6 years. Women were re-cruited from the Hispanic Health Council (43.5%), the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (29.8%), and other places (26.7%). Participants were inter-viewed using a pretested questionnaire specific to the target community. Most (73%) of the re-spondents chose to be interviewed in Spanish. Chi-square analyses were used to examine the bivariate association between ever breastfeeding and the independent variables. Multivariate logistic regression was conducted to estimate the independent association between accultura-tion, social capital, and breastfeeding. Women with more social capital were more likely (odds ratio = 2.25, 95 % confidence interval, 1.02-4.95) to have breastfed the index child, suggesting that social capital is an important predictor of breastfeeding initiation in this community.