Assessing the reliability of four standard health measures in a sample of older, urban adults

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 activ ities of daily living and activities of daily living scales of the National Chronic Care Consortium Health Risk Appraisal Survey, the SF-12, the Multi dimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, and the John Henryism Active Cop ing 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 nearer above .70. However, the item-to-scale correlat ions of many of these scales were low This finding indicates that the measu rement of the constructs may be different for older African Americans and C aucasians.