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Experience of Discrimination Questionnaire (EDQ)
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Practical Information
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Instrument Name:
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Experience of Discrimination Questionnaire (EDQ)
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Instrument Description:
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The Experience of Discrimination Questionnaire (EDQ) assesses the self-reported experiences of racial or gender discrimination as a risk factor for high blood pressure. The EDQ includes two items pertaining to unfair treatments, and five sets of items asking discriminatory experiences by types of discrimination (i.e., sexism and racism) and situations (i.e., at school and at work). The instrument was developed by Nancy Krieger, Ph.D., and was later modified for use in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study.
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Price:
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Free (from the developer; must provide source acknowledgement)
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Administration Time:
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No information found. 20 minutes for the interviewer-administered form.
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Publication Year:
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1990
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Item Readability:
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Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of 3.6. Items contain some compound sentences. The most difficult terms are "socioeconomic position," "discrimination," and "inferior."
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Scale Format:
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A two-choice closed format scale. (Yes/No on most items)
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Administration Technique:
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Self-administrated
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Scoring and Interpretation:
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Descriptive statistics, such as percent distributions, are used for comparison.
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Forms:
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No information found.
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Research Contacts
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Instrument Developers:
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Nancy Krieger, PhD
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Instrument Development Location:
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Department of Health and Social Behavior
Harvard School of Public Health
677 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
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Instrument Developer Email:
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nkrieger@hsph.harvard.edu
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Instrument Developer Website:
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No information found.
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Annotated Bibliography
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1. Krieger N. Racial and gender discrimination: risk factor for high blood pressure? Soc Sci Med 1990;30(12):1272-81. [PMID: 2367873]
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Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility of asking questions regarding race and gender biased treatment and response to unfair treatment. Additionally, this study examined whether results from those questions were associated with self-reported high blood pressure. |
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Sample: N = 101 (51 were black women and 50 were white women.) The study participants, who resided in Alameda County, CA in 1987, were between 20 and 80 years of age, with a mean age of 38.6 years for white participants, and 40.5 years for black participants. There were statistically different distributions of household class (p = 0.033), poverty (p = 0.039), groups in which active participant (p = 0.026), and self-report health status (p = 0.098) between black and white. |
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Methods: The technique of random-digit dialing was used to identify and screen the study sample. Race was self-identified by the participants. In households with more than one eligible participant, the Kish procedure was used by interviewers to select the appropriate participant. Each telephone interview lasted approximately 20 minutes. The EDQ assesses age, reproductive history, health status, educational level, marital or partner status, usual work conditions, occupational and employment status (including that of a partner, if relevant), class self-identification, family size and age structure, 1986 household income and wealth, housing conditions, address, social connectedness, self-reported hypertension status, and response to and experience of discrimination by race and gender. Hypertension status was ascertained by asking participants whether they had ever been diagnosed as having high blood pressure or hypertension. In order to assess response to unfair treatment (externalized or internalized), participants were asked whether they typically tried to do something about unfair treatment (act) or not (accept) and whether they typically told others about the unfair treatment (talk) or not (quiet). In order to assess the experience of racism and sexism, items regarding these experiences were designed to reflect well-known situations such as ‘at school’ or ‘at work’. The item unique to gender-biased treatment was ‘at home’, while the two items unique to racially-biased treatment were ‘getting housing’ and ‘from police or the courts’. All other items pertained to both gender- and racially-biased experiences. A gender and discrimination rank was created by scoring each ‘yes’ response as a 1, and then rank computing by summing the scores. The maximum value for the sexism and racism ranks were 5 and 6, respectively. The minimum score for each was 0. The response rate for completed interviews was 72%. Black and white women were equally represented among those who refused to be interviewed. |
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Implications: An internalized response to unfair treatments and non-reporting of race and gender discrimination were possible risk factors for high blood pressure among black women. |
2. Krieger N, Sidney S. Racial discrimination and blood pressure: the CARDIA study of young black and white adults. Am J of Public Health October 1996; 86(10):1370-78. [PMID: 8876504]
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Purpose: To assess associations between blood pressure and self-reported experiences of racial discrimination and responses to unfair treatment. |
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Sample: N = 4086 from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Year 7 Examination in 1992 and 1993, including Black Women (n = 1143), Black Men (n = 831), White Women (n = 1106), and White Men (n = 1006). The age range of the sample was 25-37 years, with a mean age of approximately 31 years. Their ages were in the range from 26 to 37 years. |
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Methods: The self-administered EDQ pertaining to experiences of racial discrimination and unfair treatment was conducted. The first two items concerned typical responses to unfair treatment. Response categories were (1) “Accept it as a fact of life” vs. “Try to do something about it” and (2) “Talk to other people about it” vs. “Keep it to yourself”. Five sets of items, addressed in the following order, assessed whether participants had ever experienced discrimination, been prevented from doing something, or been hassled or made to feel inferior in situations based on gender, race or color, socioeconomic position or social class, sexual preference (heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual), and religion. Situations listed for racial discrimination included “at school”, “getting a job”, “at work”, “getting housing”, “getting medical care”, “on the street or in a public setting”, and “from the police or in the courts”. Available data on occupation, annual family income, home ownership, educational level, and marital or partner status were used to evaluate modification of discrimination effects by socioeconomic position. Interviewers obtained demographic information, and trained and certified technicians recorded blood pressure measurements as a part of the year 7 CARDIA study. |
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Implications: Black-white differences in blood pressure should take into account experiences of racial discrimination and should consider the manner in which social class and gender affect exposure to and embodiment of racial discrimination. |
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Factors and Norms
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Factor Analysis Work:
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No information found.
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Normative Information Availability:
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No information found.
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Reliability Evidence
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Test-retest:
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No information found.
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Inter-rater:
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No information found.
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Internal Consistency:
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No information found.
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Alternate Forms:
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No information found.
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Validity Evidence
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Construct/ Convergent/ Discriminant:
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No information found.
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Criterion-related/ Concurrent/ Predictive:
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No information found.
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Content:
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Questions were generated by referring to well-known discriminatory situations previously reported. (Ref: 1-2)
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Responsiveness Evidence:
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No information found.
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Scale Application in VA Populations:
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No information found.
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Scale Application in non-VA Populations:
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Yes. (Ref: 1-2)
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Comments
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The use of the Experience of Discrimination Questionnaire (EDQ) has provided data that has shed a substantial amount of light on the relationship between the experience of discrimination, coping style, and subsequent blood pressure level. However, insufficient information is currently available regarding:
1. The process by which items on the EDQ were developed and tested
2. The indicators of overall reliability and validity of the EDQ
3. The indicators of reliability and validity of the EDQ in specific population subgroups (i.e., black women, white men)
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Updates
No information found.
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