| The purpose of this study was to examine the motivation for health behaviors of older adults who have recently immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union in order to assess health education needs. This group of adults faces many cultural barriers to accessing health services such as language and limited knowledge of health promotion practices. The study tested the viability of the Health Promotion Model constructs (HPM: Pender, 1982) for explaining health behaviors of older Russian emigres. While this model has been demonstrated to explain the behaviors of some American older adults, few cross-cultural studies of the HPM have been conducted.;A convenience sample of 104 Russian adults over age 60 who had arrived in the United States since 1988 were recruited from the Jewish Community Center's Senior Russian Program to complete a written survey. The survey included measures of respondents' definition of health, value of health, health locus of control, perceived health status, perceived self-efficacy, and demographic variables. The outcome variable was a measure of self-reported health-promoting behaviors. The survey was translated into Russian and back-translated.;A series of simple and multiple linear regressions was performed. Subjects' health-promoting behavior was predicted by their definition of health, their perception of control over their health, their perceived self-efficacy, their age, and their level of acculturation (... |
