Preparing for a Healthy Future Today Folic Acid Formative Research With Young Latina Adults

Summary of Formative Research Activities PNumber ofResearch Aim Method Participants Locations Timeframe Phase 1: To learn 12 focus group 144 Chicago June-July 2006attitudes, beliefs, discussions Denverknowledge, and Los Angelesbehaviors MiamiNew YorkSan AntonioPhase 2: To get 6 focus group 72 Chicago November-December 2006reactions to draft discussions Los Angelesmessage concepts MiamiPhase 3: To get Oral interviews 48 Chicago January-February 2007feedback on draft Los Angelesmaterials Miami METHODS The materials and methods for this effortare similar to those used with Latina mothers,asoutlinedin Prueetal. 13 A seriesof 3phasesmade up the design of this formative researcheffort (Table 1).Phase 1 consisted of 12 focus group dis-cussions (N = 144), split by 2 key variables,acculturation and multivitamin (MV) user sta-tus. A combination of educational attainmentandlanguagepreferenceservedasaproxyforacculturation, while MV use was defined asreportedly consuming a MV 5 to 7 times perweek. Six of the groups were comprised ofunacculturated young Latina adults, with 3 ofthese groups being MV users and 3 being MVnonusers. Similarly, the remaining 6 groupswere comprised of acculturated young Latinaadults and divided again by MV use status.Acculturated young adults had a high schooldiploma and adhered to both English andSpanish language media equally. Conversely,unacculturated young adults had less than ahigh school education and preferred Spanish-language media to English-language media.Womeninbothgroupshadnochildren,werenot pregnant at the time of the study, and hadnever been told by a health care provider thatthey could not physically become pregnant.Tomaximizethediversityinregionandcoun-try of origin of the participants, focus groupdiscussions were held in 6 cities across theUnited States with large Latino populations:Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, NewYork, and San Antonio.The aim of phase 1 was to identify youngLatina adults’ knowledge, awareness, and be-liefs regarding folic acid, as well as those bar-riers and motivators to folic acid consump-tion. The feedback was then used to create4 draft concepts, which were tested withyoung Latina adults during phase 2. It is im-portant to note that, since there were fewdifferences between acculturated and unac-culturated groups following the exploratoryresearch phase, the groups were collapsedby acculturation status for concept testing(phase 2) and draft materials testing (phase3). However, because MV use within thesesegments revealed differences, this remaineda segmentation variable.Phase 2 consisted of 6 focus group discus-sions (N = 72), split into 3 groups of MVusers and 3 groups of nonusers. Young Latinaadults in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miamiwere shown draft concepts and their feed-back was used to guide the development ofthe final set of draft materials, which weretested during phase 3.