Cultural relevance and equivalence in the NLAAS instrument: Integrating etic and emic in the development of cross-cultural measures for a psychiatric epidemiology and services study of Latinos

Margarita Alegria, Doryliz Vila, Meghan Woo, Glorisa Canino, David Takeuchi, Mildred Vera, Vivian Febo, Peter Guarnaccia, Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, Patrick Shrout

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper describes the development, translation and adaptation of measures in the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS). We Summarize the techniques used to attain Cultural relevance; semantic, content and technical equivalency; and internal consistency of the measures across languages and Latino sub-ethnic groups. We also discuss some of the difficulties and challenges encountered in doing this work. The following three main goals are addressed in this paper: (1) attaining cultural relevance by formulating the research problem with attention to the fundamental cultural and contextual differences of Latinos and Asians as compared to the mainstream population; (2) developing cultural equivalence in the standardized instruments to be used with these populations; and (3) assessing the generalizability of the measures - i.e., that the measures do not fluctuate according to culture or translation. We present details of the processes and steps used to achieve these three goals in developing measures for the Latino population. Additionally, the integration of both the etic and emic perspectives in the instrument adaptation model is presented.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)270-288
Number of pages19
JournalInternational Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research
Volume13
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2004

Keywords

  • Cultural equivalence
  • Cultural relevance
  • Ethnicity
  • Instrument translation
  • Latinos
  • NLAAS
  • National Latino and Asian American Study

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Psychiatry and Mental health

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