Measurement Issues in U.S. Health Disparities Research

健康差距研究的一个主要目标是确定这些差距产生的机制。这样的研究涉及使用健康和保健以及心理社会、社会经济、职业和环境因素的衡量标准。要进行包括多个种族的大型研究，美国研究人员面临的挑战是了解在主流、受过良好教育的样本中制定的测量方法在概念上和心理测量学上有多好地应用于这些不同的美国人口群体。事实上，有相当多的证据表明，许多指标在不同群体之间没有可比较的测量属性。我们提议举办一次研讨会，以推进健康差距和跨文化研究的衡量领域。研讨会是由NIA和NINR赞助的少数民族老龄化研究资源中心的六个测量核心开发的，并将由其主持。一个由受邀的主要定量和定性测量专家和跨文化研究人员组成的小组(12-14日)将于2001年5月在旧金山举行为期1.5天的会议，阐述概念和测量问题，并为这一研究领域制定议程。受邀专家和RCMAR测量核心研究人员将讨论：1)如何提高对此类测量研究重要性的认识；2)未来测量研究的优先领域和概念；3)最新的定性和定量测量方法，以测试测量的概念和心理测量学充分性；以及4)如何根据实际问题和限制进行工作。将就如何着手确保就将要讨论的最关键问题达成共识提出建议。该小组的讨论和建议将发表在《医疗保健》杂志上。由于在美国健康差距研究中检验测量等价性的这一领域相对较新，此时让一组专家讨论问题和方法，并提供指南和建议，可以随着健康差距研究的发展而采取系统的方法。

A major goal of health disparities research is to identify mechanisms by which these disparities occur. Such research involves using measures of health and healthcare and of psychosocial, socioeconomic, occupational, and environmental factors. To conduct large studies that include multiple racial, the challenge for U.S. researchers is to understand how well measures developed in mainstream, well-educated samples are conceptually and psychometrically adequate when applied in these diverse U.S. population segments. Indeed, there is considerable evidence that many measures do not have comparable measurement properties across groups. We propose a workshop to advance the field of measurement in health disparities and cross-cultural research. The workshop was developed and will be chaired by the six measurement cores from the NIA-and NINR-sponsored Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research. A small group (12-14) of invited leading quantitative and qualitative measurement specialists and cross cultural researchers will convene in San Francisco for 1.5 days in May, 2001 to articulate the conceptual and measurement issues and to develop an agenda for this field of research. The invited experts and the RCMAR measurement core investigators will discuss: 1) how to raise awareness of the importance of such measurement studies, 2) priority areas and concepts for future measurement studies, 3) state-of-the-art qualitative and quantitative measurement methods to test the conceptual and psychometric adequacy of measures, and 4) ways to proceed in light on practical issues and constraints. Recommendations will be made as to how to proceed to assure consensus on the most critical issues to be discussed. The discussion and recommendations of the group will be published in Medical Care. Because this field of examining measurement equivalence in studies of health disparities in the U.S. is relatively new, having a group of experts discuss the issues and methods at this time, and prov ide guidelines and recommendations, can enable systematic approaches as health disparities research evolves.