Genetic Counseling Strategies with Mexican-Origin Women

Using a combined qualitative-quantitative approach, this renewal project will explore clinicians strategies for communicating prenatal genetics information and service options to Mexican-origin clients in California and Texas, where Mexican-origin women constitute a large and growing proportion of women in prenatal care. The study will focus on clinicians with different professional backgrounds working in diverse practice settings within distinct regulatory contexts. Our specific aims are: 1) to identify the sociocultural factors which clinicians report affect their strategies for providing prenatal genetics information and service options to low income Mexican-origin clients, 2) to identify the institutional, practical, economic, and professional factors clinicians perceive as affecting their strategies for communicating prenatal genetics information and service options to such clients, and 3) to contrast the experiences and perspectives of clinicians providing prenatal genetics services to low income Mexican-origin women in California, which has a legal mandate regulating such services and Texas, which has no such comprehensive legal mandate.