Racial/ethnic differences in responses to the everyday discrimination scale: a differential item functioning analysis.
The authors examined the impact of race/ethnicity on responses to the Everyday Discrimination Scale, one of the most widely used discrimination scales in epidemiologic and public health research. Participants were 3,295 middle-aged US women (African-American, Caucasian, Chinese, Hispanic, and Japanese) from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) baseline examination (1996-1997). Multiple-indicator, multiple-cause models were used to examine differential item functioning (DIF) on the Everyday Discrimination Scale by race/ethnicity. After adjustment for age, education, and language of interview, meaningful DIF was observed for 3 (out of 10) items: "receiving poorer service in restaurants or stores," "being treated as if you are dishonest," and "being treated with less courtesy than other people" (all P's < 0.001). Consequently, the "profile" of everyday discrimination differed slightly for women of different racial/ethnic groups, with certain "public" experiences appearing to have more salience for African-American and Chinese women and "dishonesty" having more salience for racial/ethnic minority women overall. "Courtesy" appeared to have more salience for Hispanic women only in comparison with African-American women. Findings suggest that the Everyday Discrimination Scale could potentially be used across racial/ethnic groups as originally intended. However, researchers should use caution with items that demonstrated DIF.
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA. tene.lewis@yale.edu
Tené T
TT
Lewis
Frances M
FM
Yang
Elizabeth A
EA
Jacobs
George
G
Fitchett
D000328:Adult; D015982:Bias; D015340:Epidemiologic Research Design; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011287:Prejudice; D011594:Psychometrics; D044469:Racial Groups; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D016387:Women's Health / Q000208:ethnology*