Assessing the Reliability of Four Standard Health Measures in a Sample of Older, Urban Adults

Abstract

Increasing attention is being paid to racial and ethnic differences in the structure and measurement of physical health and mental health constructs. The objective of this study was to examine the reliability of four measures of physical health and mental health in a sample of 400 older (50+ years) African Americans and Caucasians. These measures are the instrumental activities of daily living and activities of daily living scales of the National Chronic Care Consortium Health Risk Appraisal Survey, the SF-12, the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, and the John Henryism Active Coping Scale. The measures were tested by racial group. The results of factor analyses reveal that the overall reliability of each scale, as measured by Cronbach’s alpha, was near or above .70. However, the item-to-scale correlations of many of these scales were low. This finding indicates that the measurement of the constructs may be different for older African Americans and Caucasians.