Abstract
The authors examined the impact of race/ethnicity on responses to the Everyday Discrimination Scale, one of the most widely used discrimination scales in epidemiologic and public health research. Participants were 3,295 middle-aged US women (African-American, Caucasian, Chinese, Hispanic, and Japanese) from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) baseline examination (1996-1997). Multiple-indicator, multiple-cause models were used to examine differential item functioning (DIF) on the Everyday Discrimination Scale by race/ethnicity. After adjustment for age, education, and language of interview, meaningful DIF was observed for 3 (out of 10) items: "receiving poorer service in restaurants or stores," "being treated as if you are dishonest," and "being treated with less courtesy than other people" (all P's < 0.001). Consequently, the "profile" of everyday discrimination differed slightly for women of different racial/ethnic groups, with certain "public" experiences appearing to have more salience for African-American and Chinese women and "dishonesty" having more salience for racial/ethnic minority women overall. "Courtesy" appeared to have more salience for Hispanic women only in comparison with African-American women. Findings suggest that the Everyday Discrimination Scale could potentially be used across racial/ethnic groups as originally intended. However, researchers should use caution with items that demonstrated DIF.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 391-401 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | American journal of epidemiology |
Volume | 175 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 1 2012 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- African Americans
- Asian Americans
- European continental ancestry group
- Hispanic Americans
- bias (epidemiology)
- prejudice
- psychometrics
- questionnaires
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Medicine