ASSESSING PUBLIC-HEALTH PRACTICE - APPLICATION OF 10 CORE FUNCTION MEASURES OF COMMUNITY-HEALTH IN 6 STATES

Factor analysis, combined with an evaluation of item difficulty and di scrimination, can provide useful insights in questionnaire development . In 1993, as part of a study to develop a questionnaire to assess per formance of the core functions of public health at a community level, 370 local health departments (LHDs) in six states completed a 26-item questionnaire (94% response). This study describes factor analysis res ults after controlling for item difficulty and discrimination. Fifteen items had intermediate difficulty and fair-to-good discrimination. Fa ctor analysis of these 15 items identified four factors. Three of thes e factors included items from more than one of the core functions. The se findings pose an interesting question for future research: are the core functions of public health better conceived as three discrete, di stinguishable factors or as three interlocking factors that form a sin gle, seamless unit?