title: Racial and ethnic identity in nursing research.
abstract: Nurse researchers need to be able to identify the race and ethnicity of participants in their studies for several reasons including addressing health disparities, ensuring adequate representation from under-represented minorities, and making sure other nurses can understand how findings may or may not pertain to their own patient population. However, obtaining accurate information about race and ethnicity requires careful attention to norms of study participants. Race and ethnicity are not always viewed as 2 separate constructs and the definition of both changes over time. In fact, a random sample of 100 patients in 1 hospital found an 11% discrepancy between patients' self-identification of race using 2 different methodologies of self-identification. To optimize accuracy of self-identification of race and ethnicity, this paper discusses techniques learned in practice and in the literature for improving self-identification of these 2 constructs.
authors.affiliation: William F. Connell School of Nursing Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA. Susan.gennaro@bc.edu
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gennaro
authors.forename: Heidi Collins
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Fantasia
authors.forename: Tayra
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Keshinover
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Garry
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wilcox
authors.forename: Elyse
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Uppal
mesh_terms: D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D015399:Nursing Research; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D057566:Self Report; D012933:Social Identification; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors