Perceptions of Preventive Health Care and Healthy Lifestyle Choices for Low Income Families: A Qualitative Study

Table 2

Main focus group themes and representative quotes.

Concept	Theme	Representative quotes
Defining preventive health	Definitions varied by group; however parents both identified nutrition and physical activity (exercise) as encompassed in preventive health.	“physical exercise and diet,” “Regular dental checkups,” “social health is also important as well as the physical health,” “its prevention before having any type of illnesses and to help us, well yes, to not develop the symptoms from said illness”
Barriers to preventive health	Navigating the medical world	“Insurance is really important,” “sometimes doctor's office might be booked and they don't have and they don't have openings and that might be the only time the patient will be able to come in to be seen,”
	Cultural barriers	“that sometimes we don’t know because of the upbringing they taught us in Mexico. It is very different here,” “We tend to think that the chubby children are the healthiest children… and we say that the chubbier the child is the healthier he is and that is not true. Because sometimes when we have family reunions, sometimes I feel embarrassed that my daughter is not that chubby.”
Protective factors to preventive health	Knowledge of benefits of preventive health	“We can get more information regarding nutrition, read the nutrition labels that have everything, have that information..”
	Guidelines for preventive health	“Like providing guidelines, providing guidelines of where to do checkups you know or you know, what to seek medical attention on,” “And having seminars or you know talks, like -I like what they do it here at [Center] and of course it's in conjunction with head start…”
Defining healthy lifestyle choices	Living healthy	“like what you eat, how you exercise, Or keep yourself physically,” “Its just like making choices you know get outta the house and take your kid to the park, even though you’re, yea, you’re tired and you work all day long,” “Because a healthy lifestyles should have everything, exercise, nutrition and hygiene, a good rest.”
Barriers to healthy lifestyle choices	Neighborhood safety	“and neighborhoods like poor low income neighborhoods, sometimes they don’t have a safe environment to be walking around,” “so there’s not sidewalks for them to walk on”
	Lack of communication with physicians	“Sometimes the doctors don’t diagnose,” “But my doctor would tell me that everything was okay,” “security is the top priority for this for healthy lifestyle -security would be first at the top of the list”
Protective factors to healthy lifestyle choices	Community and social support	“sometimes you to need someone to encourage you,” “that’s when encouragement comes in because sometimes you to need someone to encourage you hey you say you wouldn’t go to on a walk by yourself hey lets how about we go for walk”