Methods/Statistics
Development of an Item Bank to Measure Discrimination and Racism Across Black and Hispanic/Latino Populations: A Modified Delphi approach Nneka Okeke* Nneka Okeke Okeke Okeke Okeke Okeke Okeke Okeke University of Maryland,Baltimore
Development of an Item Bank to Measure Discrimination and Racism Across Black and Hispanic/Latino Populations: A Modified Delphi approach
Nneka Okeke, Sara Daniel, Zonggui Li, Jennifer Contreras, Salene Jones, Bryce Reeve & Ester Villalonga-Olives
SER Submission Categories: Methods/Statistics, Social
Abstract (Character limit: 2,000 with spaces. Character count: 1,982 with spaces).
Background: Existing measures of discrimination and racism are developed as fixed instruments and do not adequately capture experiences of perceived, structural, and economic discrimination. An item bank is a large collection of psychometrically calibrated items that allows for standardized, flexible, and adaptive testing. We aimed to develop an item bank to assess discrimination and racism that is appropriate for use across Black and Hispanic/Latino populations.
Methods: We used a modified Delphi process to establish content validity and expert consensus. A multidisciplinary panel of subject matter and community experts (n=10) evaluated an initial pool of 226 items drawn from existing measures of racism and discrimination. To strengthen representation of economic discrimination, an additional 97 items were generated from interviews (n=6) and focus groups (n=2) conducted with community advisory board members (n=10) and economic experts(n=4). Items were rated on relevance, clarity, and construct representation using predefined criteria. Based on predetermined consensus thresholds, items were retained, revised, or excluded. Items lacking consensus were revised and reassessed in a subsequent Delphi round until all items were either retained or excluded.
Results: After Round 1, 126 of 226 existing items were retained, 34 were deleted, and 66 existing items plus the 97 new items were re-evaluated. Final consensus-based item selection will be presented at the conference.
Conclusions: The modified Delphi process yielded a refined set of items capturing multi-level sub-domains of racism and discrimination, including structural, community, cultural, and individual-level experiences, with strengthened coverage of economic discrimination. This work advances a comprehensive, evolving item bank for measuring racism and discrimination across Black and Hispanic/Latino populations and supports future psychometric calibration and evaluation of measurement invariance.