Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2017
Publication Title
Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy
Abstract
Objective: Racial and ethnic disparities in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its treatment have been documented for both civilians and military veterans. To better understand the presence of disparities and factors that might contribute to them, accurate assessment of race and ethnicity is critical; however there still remains unstandardized assessment and challenges to implementation. The authors highlight specific problems in the assessment of race and ethnicity in research, such as missing data, misclassification, classification categories too limited to reflect many peoples' social identities, and inappropriate aggregation of ethnoracial subgroups. Conclusions: A proposal is made for a minimal uniform assessment standard of race and ethnicity. Additional recommendations incorporate principles proposed by the Institute of Medicine that allow for more granular assessment of race and ethnicity to better capture individual identity and cultural factors as they relate to the assessment, experience and management of PTSD.
Keywords
assessment, ethnicity, PTSD, race, veteran
Volume
9
Issue
2
First Page
222
Last Page
229
DOI
10.1037/tra0000181
ISSN
19429681
Rights
© 2016 American Psychological Association
Recommended Citation
Onoye, Jane M.; Spoont, Michele; Whealin, Julia M.; Pole, Nnamdi; MacKintosh, Margaret Anne; Spira, James L.; and Morland, Leslie A., "Improving Assessment of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture to Further Veteran PTSD Research." (2017). Psychology: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/psy_facpubs/113
Comments
Archived as published. Open access.