Sue-Jen Lin

health communication, health information, media use, new immigrant women, Theory of Planned Behavior

This study investigates the health information resource channels and their priority for new immigrant women to identify what factors influence the attitudes and behaviors of new immigrant women toward health information. From July 2011 to September 2011, we conducted convenience sampling to recruit interviewees from local household registration offices, literacy classes for foreign spouses, and the Trans- Asia Sisters Association. We conducted a focus group with 15 China and Southeast Asia foreign spouses. Participants were selected to complete questionnaires using the snowball sampling method. The results of this study indicate that new immigrant women from China and Southeast Asia ranked “health assistance provision” as the primary health information they concern. The primary resource channel of interpersonal networks was their spouses; the primary resource channel for media was television. The results also indicated that new immigrant women who had positive perceptions of health care behavior and significant support of subjective norms were likely to believe that health information could improve the health of their families and themselves. The new immigrant women who were from families of low economic status, but had high education levels, positive perceptions of health care behavior, and easy access to health information were more likely to obtain health information through various channels. We recommend that the related authorities reinforce the health concepts of new immigrant women and support from their Taiwanese spouses on related health care activities. In addition, new immigrant women can improve their health care abilities by accessing information related to health care assistance, diseases prevention, and parental health care via television and radio, thereby promoting the health of their families and themselves.