Psychosocial-cultural Predictors of Sport and Exercise Participation in Latinx College Students

Operating within the framework of a public health model that emphasizes the prevention of health concerns through the identification of risk and protective factors, this study approaches the health disparities Latinxs face from a strength-based stance through the promotion of sport and exercise participation. The purpose of this study is to understand the factors that promote sport and exercise participation within a Latinx college student sample using cross-sectional data from the Healthy Minds Study (HMS) from cohort years 2016 through 2020. It was hypothesized that psychosocial-cultural predictors (i.e., sense of belonging, discrimination, depression, anxiety, and positive mental health) would predict Latinx college students’ participation in (1) sports and (2) exercise while accounting for established factors such as demographic (gender, financial hardship, US-born status) and academic (i.e., GPA, academic persistence) variables. Further, the study incorporated an exploratory approach to further examine gender-based differences in (1) sport and (2) exercise participation rates among the aforementioned study variables. Preliminary analyses using chi-squared analyses, point bi-serial correlations, and group differences using t-tests were conducted. The main analyses conducted using logistic regression indicated that psychosocial cultural variables predict (1) sport and (2) exercise participation while accounting for demographic and academic variables. However, the classification accuracy for sport participation with the addition of psychosocial-cultural variables was not compelling so individual predictors were not analyzed. For exercise participation, gender, financial hardship, sense of belonging, discrimination and positive mental health were the only individual, significant factors. Further, in terms of gender differences, it appears that financial hardship, GPA, and discrimination uniquely affect Latinx women. Implications for academic institutions, coaches/fitness instructors, and clinicians are further discussed.