I was out of the country during week so I am posting this late, better late than never :)
Part 1:
1. Choose a paper describing the development or validation of a measure of relevance in health disparities research (please give the full citation and/or upload the paper if that's possible).
English, D., Bowleg, L., Del Río-González, A. M., Tschann, J. M., Agans, R. P., & Malebranche, D. J. (2017). Measuring Black men's police-based discrimination experiences: Development and validation of the Police and Law Enforcement (PLE) Scale. Cultural diversity & ethnic minority psychology, 23(2), 185–199. https://ucsf.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000137
2. What was the definition of the construct?
As we have learned in class, experiences of racism and discrimination contribute to health disparities in several fields including cardiovascular and mental health. English and colleagues aimed to develop and validate a scale to measure and understand the psychological impact of police and law enforcement-perpetrated discrimination. The construct included multiple forms of police-perpetrated discrimination (i.e. being accused of drug-related behavior, being unfairly pulled over while driving, being unfairly stopped and searched, being assumed a thief, experiencing verbal abuse etc.), from the perspective of Black men.
3. How did the authors provide evidence on the validity of the measure? Could you think of additional approaches to validating the measure?
The authors validated the measure through qualitative focus groups with approximately 40 Black men, as well as quantitative analysis with a probability sample of 600+ Black men. I think the authors did a good job of using a mixed-methods approach to validate the measure, and while I cannot recommend an additional approach to validation, I would have liked to see them use a larger population of Black men for the qualitative study.
4. How did the authors provide evidence on the reliability of the measure? Could you think of additional approaches to evaluating the reliability of the measure?
The authors tested the reliability of the measure using a quantitative survey among 1000+ Black men. This survey was carried via telephone across four (Fulton, DeKalb, Lowndes & Muskogee) counties in Georgia. I think the authors did a great job of getting a diverse spread to test the reliability of the PLE and I personally do not think additional approaches were needed.
5. Describe the implications of a lack of measurement validity or reliability for future research applications.
If the authors did not reach the necessary standards with respect to validity and/or reliability, the measure is likely going to give incorrect results when used in practice. For example, if the PLE is not valid, it may not yield valid results in its’ intended target population (i.e. Black men), and future researchers will be unable to use this scale to measure experiences of law enforcement related discrimination among Black men. Further, if the scale is unreliable, then any future researchers who use the PLE will not collect similar information (i.e. the data collected will vary and not give reliable answers in the same individual).
Part 2:
1. Find a paper describing a health disparity (please give the full citation or, even better, upload the paper so everyone else can look at it too)
Braveman, P., Heck, K., Egerter, S., Dominguez, T. P., Rinki, C., Marchi, K. S., & Curtis, M. (2017). Worry about racial discrimination: A missing piece of the puzzle of Black-White disparities in preterm birth?. PloS one, 12(10), e0186151. https://ucsf.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186151
2. Summarize the construct and measurement of the dimension of disparity (e.g., racial inequalities?, SES inequalities?) and the outcome measured (e.g., self-rated health).
This paper aims to measure racial disparities in preterm birth, with a focus on understanding how worry about discrimination may explain the higher preterm birth rates among Black women. The authors define “worry about discrimination” using a scale which asked the question “Overall during your life until now, how often have you worried that you might be treated or judged unfairly because of your race or ethnic group?”. The response options were “very often”, “somewhat often”, “not very often” or “never”. They dichotomized the measure by collapsing the “very often” and “somewhat often” categories and defining these individuals as having experienced chronic worry about racial discrimination, whereas the other responses were considered as not experiencing chronic worry. The outcome was preterm birth, defined as birth between 17 and 36 weeks of completed gestation, as measured by obstetrical estimate and last menstrual period (for n=10 women who had no obstetrical estimate).
3. What is the evidence for the validity and reliability of the measures?
In the paper, the authors do mention that lack of psychometric testing for validity and reliability of their measure of chronic worry about racial discrimination. However, they do note that they based their measure on previous systematic qualitative research, which had been tested cognitively and in focus groups, which does provide some evidence of basic validity and reliability.
4. What is the reference category used for the disparity measure (ie, who is the comparison group)? Why does this reference category make sense (or not) for this research question?
The reference category for this study is white women. Given the racial history of the USA, it is common for health disparity researcher is to compare the health of oppressed populations to that of the dominant white population. Therefore, I think it is unsurprising that the authors used white women as a comparison group, and it makes sense for this research question.
5. How is the disparity quantified or measured? Is this an absolute or relative measure or are both provided? Describe which type of measure you would prefer for this research area, or, if both, why.
The authors quantified the disparity in absolute terms as the number of preterm births among the total population of Black and white women, respectively. For the purpose of this paper, I think the absolute measure suffices, however I think more generally in the area of perinatal health disparities, readers could benefit from the relative measures as well. As in some areas, the overall rate of preterm birth may be low across racial groups, but when the rates are computed relative to the rate among whites, a clearer picture of disparities may arise.