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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Racial bias in the assessment of cognitive functioning of older adults | | Author(s) | R N Jones |
| Journal title | Aging & Mental Health, vol 7, no 2, March 2003 |
| Pages | pp 83-102 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Ethnic groups ; Cognitive processes ; Evaluation ; Attitude ; Interviewing ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | This study determined whether the differences in assessed cognition between Black or African American and White older people was due to differential item functioning (DIF) and/or differences in the effect of background variables. Participants were 15,257 Americans aged 50+ surveyed in the Study of Asset and Health Dynamics in the Oldest Old (AHEAD) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The cognitive measure was a modified version of the telephone interview for cognitive status. The analytic strategy was a multiple group structural equation model grounded in item response theory. Results find that 89% of the group difference could be attributed to measurement or structural differences, the remainder being not significantly different from zero. Most items displayed racial DIF, accounting for most of the group difference. After controlling for DIF, the group difference that remained could be attributed to heterogeneity in the effect of background variables (e.g. educational attainment, income status) These findings underscore the importance of efforts to generate culture-fair measurement devices. However, culture-fair assessments may attenuate, but not eliminate, group differences in assessed cognition due to the incommensurate action of background variables. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-030806202 A |
| Classmark | TK: DA: 4C: DP: 3DL: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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