MEASUREMENT AND METHODS CORE

探讨健康方面现有种族/民族和社会经济差异的性质，并确定 它们发生的机制，正在进行更多的不同人群的研究。 research.这项研究依赖于各种自我报告的健康，医疗保健和心理社会措施， 文化、社会经济和环境因素。进行大规模的研究，包括 多个种族，民族和社会经济地位群体，并能够在这些群体之间比较分数，我们需要 我知道，在主流，受过良好教育的样本开发的措施是概念和心理测量 当应用于这些不同的人群时，效果相当。如果没有这种保证， 比较可能导致虚假的结果，对政策决定产生负面影响。目前， 了解现有的措施如何在这些不同的群体中发挥作用，美国很少有研究人员。 都意识到了这一信息的重要性。我们的测量核心一直致力于解决这些问题 在过去的五年里。我们建议继续支持健康差距和少数民族老龄化研究， 推动制定老年人健康差异的多层次决定因素的概念框架 成年人，实证测试差异的可能机制，并增加自我报告的可用性 有证据表明概念和心理测量充分性和等效性的测量。 我们将测试新的措施，包括社会经济地位，经验， 歧视和/或种族主义以及社会文化因素。我们将推进环境水平的发展 比如社区资源。我们将测试CES-D的测量不变性 以及SF 36在种族/民族、年龄和性别组中的分布。最后，我们计划提高对 研究人员和政策制定者认识到测量研究在少数民族老龄化研究中的重要性， 提高他们进行和解释测量分析的技能。为了继续推进这一领域，我们将 在2006年（第四年）牵头设计和主办第二届RCMAR测量会议 以召集L.S.研究人员传播测量和方法方面的现有知识 在健康差异和少数民族老龄化研究方面。这些拟议的任务将有助于我们继续作出贡献 以确保实现减少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.