The National Council of La Raza, the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy group in the United States, recently published what promises to be an important report for sexual and reproductive health in America. “Entre Parejas: An Exploration of Latino Perspectives on Family Planning and Contraception” takes a comprehensive look at issues of access and attitudes toward family planning and contraception among Latino women and men.

Considering that half of Latino Americans are under age 30 – many in prime reproductive years – and that Latinos are rapidly becoming the largest ethnic minority in the United States, this report comes at a critical time to help develop better and more culturally sensitive sexual and reproductive health services and strategies aimed at Latinos.

Among the report’s findings:

• Latino men and women – men in particular – need more information for maintaining good sexual and reproductive health.
• Latina women often feel uncomfortable with their physicians and health care clinics because of cultural barriers and feelings of being treated unfairly by providers, particularly when their English fluency is limited.
• Latina women voiced the need to have more education and information materials written in Spanish or in a bilingual Spanish/English format.
• Latino men and women, as well as community health workers, recognized that there are cultural barriers to talking about sexual and reproductive health in Latino communities.
• For some Latinos, immigration status, lack of insurance, and education level present large barriers to understanding or seeking services for sexual and reproductive health in America.
• While there were some good signs of communication between the sexes, the report suggests that more can be done to involve Latino men in sexual and reproductive health conversations and decisions with their partners, particularly related to contraception.

Latino perspectives on reproductive health issues are important for all people to understand in this country, particularly because of the growing political power of this community. For those who work on sexual and reproductive health, hopefully the findings in this report will be helpful in developing future programs and policies that are sensitive of Latino culture.