MEASUREMENT AND METHODS CORE

探讨健康方面现有种族/族裔和社会经济差距的性质，并确定 它们发生的机制，正在对不同人群进行更多关于老龄化的研究 研究。这项研究依赖于健康、医疗保健和心理社会的各种自我报告测量， 文化、社会经济和环境因素。进行大规模研究，包括 多个种族、民族和社会经济地位群体，为了能够比较这些群体的分数，我们需要 知道在主流的、受过良好教育的样本中开发的测量在概念上和心理测量学上是 当应用于这些不同的人口部分时，它们是等同的。如果没有这样的保证，集团 比较可能导致虚假的结果，从而对政策决策产生负面影响。目前，几乎没有什么是 人们知道现有的措施在这些不同的群体中运行得有多好，而美国的研究人员很少。 都意识到这一信息的重要性。我们的测量核心一直在研究这些问题 在过去的5年里。我们建议继续支持健康差距和少数族裔老龄化研究 推进老年人健康差距多水平决定因素概念框架的发展 成年人，经验性地测试造成这种差异的可能机制，并增加自我报告的可用性 有证据表明概念和心理测量学的充分性和等价性的测量。 我们将测试新的差距关键决定因素的衡量标准，包括社会经济地位、经历 歧视和/或种族主义，以及社会文化因素。推进环境水平建设。 邻里资源等措施。我们将测试CES-D的测量不变性 以及跨种族/民族、年龄和性别群体的SF36。最后，我们计划加强对以下问题的认识 研究人员和政策制定者认识到测量研究在少数群体老龄化研究中的重要性，以及 提高他们进行和解释测量分析的技能。为了继续推动这一领域的发展，我们将 在2006年(第4年)牵头设计并主办第二届RCMAR测量会议 与召集LI.S.研究人员一起传播测量和方法方面的当前知识 在健康差距和少数族裔老龄化研究方面。这些拟议的任务将帮助我们继续作出贡献 以确保能够实现缩小健康差距的国家目标。

To explore the nature of existing racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in health and identify the mechanisms by which they occur, more studies of diverse populations are being conducted In aging research. This research depends on a variety of self-report measures of health, health care, and psychosocial, cultural, socioeconomic, and environmental factors. To conduct large-scale research that include multiple racial, ethnic and SES groups and to be able to compare scores across these groups, we need to know that measures developed in mainstream, well-educated samples are conceptually and psychometrically equivalent when applied to these diverse population segments. Without such assurances, group comparisons may result in spurious results that negatively impact policy decisions. Currently, very little is known about how well existing measures work across these diverse groups, and few researchers in the U.S. are aware of the importance of this information. Our measurement core has been working on these issues for the past 5 years. We propose to continue to support health disparities and minority aging research by advancing development of conceptual frameworks of multi-level determinants of health disparities in older adults, empirically testing possible mechanisms for the disparities, and increasing the availability of selfreport measures for which there is evidence of conceptual and psychometric adequacy and equivalence. We will test new measures of key determinants of disparities, including socioeconomic status, experiences of discrimination and/or racism, and sociocultural factors. We will advance development of environmentallevel measures such as neighborhood resources. We will test the measurement invariance of the CES-D and the SF36 across racial/ethnic, age, and gender groups. Finally, we plan to enhance the awareness of researchers and policy makers of the importance of measurement studies in minority aging research, and increase their skills to conduct and interpret measurement analyses. To continue to advance the field, we will take the lead in designing and hosting a second RCMAR measurement conference in the year 2006 (year 4) with the g0al of convening LI.S. researchers to disseminate current knowledge in measurement and methods in health disparities and minority aging research. These proposed tasks will help us continue to contribute toward assuring that the national goals to reduce health disparities can be met.