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).
McCauley HL, Silverman JG, Jones KA, Tancredi DJ, Decker MR, McCormick MC, Austin SB, Anderson HA, Miller E. Psychometric properties and refinement of the Reproductive Coercion Scale. Contraception. 2016 Sep 14. pii: S0010-7824(16)30412-7.
2.What was the definition of the construct?
The Reproductive Coercion Scale (RCS) attempts to measure the presence of reproductive coercion as defined as “behavior intended to maintain power and control in a relationship related to reproductive health…” The authors attempted to develop a short-form of the RCS to be used in research and clinical practice.
3.How did the authors provide evidence on the validity of the measure? Could you think of additional approaches to validating the measure?
The RCS has been previously validated, so it was administered to the participants along with intimate partner violence scales and unwanted pregnancy scales, and then each question was analyzed to decided which questions were most predictive of RC. Those questions (aggregated as the short form RCS) were then examined in the participants. The prediction rates of RC using the RCS and SF-RCS were 6.7% and 6.3%, respectively. Another approach would have been to apply the SF-RCS to another group, instead of the same participants.
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 reliability of the scales was assessed by estimating total information curves (TICs), which represent the information collected across all items in either the RCS or the SF-RCS. Per the paper, “The TIC is equal to the inverse of the square of the standard error of measurement (SEM), both of which vary as a function of the latent dimension level. We visually compared TICs and calculated total information parameters and SEMs among women with dimension levels of 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 standard deviations above the mean (i.e., women with increasing RC severity), to assess how well the two scale versions performed.”
5.Describe the implications of a lack of measurement validity or reliability for future research applications.
Poor validity and reliability for RC measures could be problematic for future research because if they do not predict RC well, it could negatively impact the outcome of future studies. Also if future studies are looking to create interventions for RC, appropriate and accurate measures of RC are essential.
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)
Paper: Beavis AL, Gravitt PE, Rositch AF. Hysterectomy-corrected cervical cancer mortality rates reveal a larger racial disparity in the United States. Cancer. 2017 Jan 23.
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).
Death due to cervical cancer was measured as the outcome, stratified by age, state, year and race. Equivalently stratified data on the prevalence of hysterectomy for women 20 years old or older from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey were used to remove women who were not at risk for cervical cancer from the denominator. This differs from prior studies which did not removed women who had had hysterectomy from the denominator. This corrected measure showed an even larger disparity in deaths from cervical cancer between white and black women than previously reported.
3.What is the evidence for the validity and reliability of the measures?
The validity and reliability of the measure of race in the SEER database and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System database is not reported in this paper, but both collect race based on self-report. Self-reported race is considered the gold standard, though this can sometimes be complicated by the inclusion of a separate question about Hispanic ethnicity.
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 group is white women who died from cervical cancer, as compared to black women who died from cervical cancer. This paper was performed due to recent data which suggested that the gap in mortality between white and black when was shrinking, but the effect of hysterectomy prevalence differences (and thusly the differences in those at risk for cervical cancer) had not been accounted for. Thusly, using white women who died from cervical cancer is appropriate for the reference group.
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 outcome was measured using the hysterectomy prevalence corrected mortality rate for cervical cancer, ie number of deaths from cervical cancer per 100,000 women at risk for cervical cancer. This is an absolute measure. When looking at mortality, absolute measures as more desirable.