Collaborative: Intercultural Variation in Illness Beliefs

该项目(由两个协作奖组成，该奖项授予南佛罗里达大学的罗伯塔·贝尔9807373个奖项)继续使用文化共识模型进行一系列研究，这是一种统计技术，用于评估来自当地社区或文化群体的受访者的基本模型的同质性程度，在这种情况下，拉丁美洲受访者使用的是特定疾病(糖尿病、艾滋病、普通感冒)。这项研究将侧重于系统地检查文化内变异的来源，特别是关于特定疾病的专门知识或个人经验的影响。这项研究通过收集新的样本与之前收集的样本进行比较，建立并扩展了在9204555上所做的早期工作。有了这些新数据，就有可能探索不同群体在不同地点内和不同地点之间的信仰差异。将检验三个假设：信念上的差异是由于在一般社区中经历或接触疾病的不同；关于疾病的信念会因个体受访者是否患有疾病而有所不同；受过专业培训的受访者和非专业受访者在信仰结构上的差异将大于来自国籍或文化的差异。该项目将从危地马拉、墨西哥和得克萨斯州南部的六个样本人口，以及瓜达拉哈拉、墨西哥和得克萨斯州南部的糖尿病患者和医生那里收集有关艾滋病和普通感冒的新数据。此外，还将进行一些模拟工作，以评估回答偏差和答案偏差对共识估计的影响。共识模型通过评估被调查者对一系列相关问题的回答的一致性或同质性，并证明对标准化答案的估计，为社区信念的描述带来了严谨性，类似于心理测量学家可能应用于分析测试项目的可靠性。

This project (consisting of two collaborative awards, this and 9807373 to Roberta Baer at the University of South Florida) continues a line of research using the cultural consensus model, a statistical technique for assessing the degree of homogeneity in the underlying models of respondents from a local community or cultural population, in this case of specific illnesses (diabetes, AIDS, the common cold) used by Latin American respondents. The research will focus on the systematic examination of sources of intracultural variation, in particular on the effect of specialized knowledge or personal experience of a specific disease. This research builds on and expands earlier work done on 9204555 by collecting new samples for comparison to previously collected samples. With this new data it will be possible to explore variation in beliefs across diverse groups within and across sites. Three hypotheses will be tested: that differences in beliefs are due to differences in `experience` or exposure to the illness in the general community; that beliefs about illness will vary by whether the individual respondent has had the illness; and that the differences in belief structure between professionally trained and lay respondents will be greater than differences from nationality or culture. The project will collect new data about AIDS and the common cold from six sample populations in Guatemala, Mexico and south Texas, and from diabetics and physicians in Guadalajara, Mexico and south Texas. In addition some simulation work will be done to assess the effects of response bias and skewed answer keys on consensus estimates. The consensus model brings rigor to the description of community beliefs by assessing the concordance or homogeneity across informant' responses to a series of related questions and proving estimates of normative answers, similar to that which a psychometrician might apply to analyzing the reliability of test items.