title: A mixed-methods approach to developing a self-reported racial/ethnic discrimination measure for use in multiethnic health surveys.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The development of measures of self-reported racial/ethnic discrimination is an active area of research, but few measures have been validated across multiple racial/ethnic and language groups. Our goal is to develop and evaluate a discrimination measure that is appropriate for use in surveys of racially and ethnically diverse populations.
  
  
  METHODS
  To develop our measure, we employ a mixed-methods approach for survey research, drawing from both qualitative and quantitative traditions, including literature review, cognitive testing, psychometric analyses, behavior coding as well as two rounds of field testing using a split-sample design. We tested our new measure using two different approaches to elicit self-reported experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our new measure captures four dimensions of racial/ethnic discrimination: 1) frequency of encounters with discrimination across several domains (eg, medical care, school, work, street and other public places); 2) timing of exposure (eg recent, lifetime); 3) appraisal of discrimination as stressful; and 4) responses to discrimination.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Because of the growing interest in measurement of racial/ethnic discrimination in health surveys, we think this report on the methods informing the development and testing of the discrimination module that will be used on the California Health Interview Survey would be useful to other researchers. The application of mixed methods to rigorously test the validity and reliability of our instrument proves to be a good roadmap for measuring racial/ethnic discrimination in multicultural and multilingual populations.
authors.affiliation: Applied Research Program, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892-7344, USA. shariffs@mail.nih.gov
authors.forename: Salma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shariff-Marco
authors.forename: Gilbert C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Gee
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Breen
authors.forename: Gordon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Willis
authors.forename: Bryce B
authors.initials: BB
authors.lastname: Reeve
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Grant
authors.forename: Ninez A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Ponce
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Krieger
authors.forename: Hope
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Landrine
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Margarita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alegria
authors.forename: Vickie M
authors.initials: VM
authors.lastname: Mays
authors.forename: Timothy P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: E Richard
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D005006:Ethnicity; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D011287:Prejudice; D011594:Psychometrics