Development and Validation of a Discrimination Measure with Cambodian American Adolescents

Introduction:Evidence suggests that discrimination is one of the factors contributing to racial/ethnic disparities in health. Limited studies of this work have focused on ethnic minority youth. Furthermore, few studies have taken into account the multiple social contexts in which racial discrimination occurs and the ways in which youth of specific ethnic groups experience particular forms of racial discrimination.

Purpose:This study used a community-based participatory (CBPR) framework to develop an instrument that measures racial discrimination experiences among Cambodian American (CA) adolescents. In this presentation, we describe the process of developing this instrument and present results from the psychometric testing.

Methods: Five focus groups were conducted with 40 CA adolescents to evaluate community-identified needs. A separate advisory group of CA adolescents developed survey items based on themes expressed by the focus groups. Community-generated items were reviewed alongside select items from existing measures of perceived discrimination. This process resulted in an18-item instrument assessing the frequency of unfair treatment attributed to being Cambodian in the past year. Items address possible discrimination experiences related to peer, school, and police/authority figures. Responses ranged from 1 (never) to 5 (always),with higher scores indicating more frequent discriminatory encounters.

Results:The sample included 424 CA with a mean age 15.90 (SD = 1.26); 52% were female. High reliability was found for each subscale [peer (α = .89); school (α = .86); police (α = .93)]. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with oblimin rotation was used to explore the underlying factor structure among the observed variables. Three factors emerged and explained 97% of the variance.  We then conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to verify the instrument’s latent constructs. The model displayed reasonable fit [(CFI=.979; RMSEA= .049]. We also conducted CFA in subsamples (random split and gender split), and the results were consistent with the whole sample analysis. Given the known relationship between racial discrimination and depression in the literature, the significant correlations between depression and discrimination subfactors in this study demonstrated concurrent validity.

Conclusion: We present how to utilize CBPR to develop a culturally sensitive instrument to assess multiple forms of racial discrimination in CA adolescents. The findings from psychometric testing suggested adequate validity and reliability of the instrument. Researchers, educators, and clinicians in health and social sciences may apply this instrument to understand the degree and sources of racial discrimination perceived by CA youth and its adverse influences on their health.