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RESEARCH PRODUCT
Semantics bias in cross-national comparative analyses : Is it good or bad to have "fair" health?
Yeva MovseyanMaria CorellFranco CavalloPaola DalmassoTeresa SantosCurt HagquistMujgan AlikasifugluChristina SchnohrTorbjørn TorsheimJoanna MazurRaili VälimaaInese GobinaSaskia Van Dorsselaersubject
Cross-Cultural ComparisonMaleTranslationAdolescentInternational studiesHealth BehaviorShort ReportMeasurement varianceHealth Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC)koettu terveys03 medical and health sciences0302 clinical medicineQuality of life (healthcare)Self-rated healthBiasSurveys and QuestionnairesHealth Status IndicatorsHumansTranslations030212 general & internal medicineChildInternational comparisonSelf-rated healthHealth behavior in school-aged children (HBSC)030505 public healthComparabilityInternational comparisonsPublic Health Environmental and Occupational HealthReproducibility of ResultsGeneral Medicinekansainvälinen vertailuCross-cultural studiesHealth indicatorHealth equitySemanticsQuality of LifeHealth Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC); International comparison; Measurement variance; Self-rated health; TranslationFemale0305 other medical sciencePsychologySocial psychologydescription
The Health Behavior in School-aged Children is a cross-national study collecting data on social and health indicators on adolescents in 43 countries. The study provides comparable data on health behaviors and health outcomes through the use of a common protocol, which have been a back bone of the study sine its initiation in 1983. Recent years, researchers within the study have noticed a questionable comparability on the widely used item on self-rated health. One of the four response categories to the item “Would you say your health is….?” showed particular variation, as the response category “Fair” varied from 20 % in Latvia and Moldova to 3–4 % in Bulgaria and Macedonia. A qualitative mini-survey of the back-translations showed that the response category “Fair” had a negative slant in 25 countries, a positive slant in 10 countries and was considered neutral in 9 countries. This finding indicates that there are what may be called semantic issues affecting comparability in international studies, since the same original word (in an English original) is interpreted differently across countries and cultures. The paper test and discuss a few possible explanations to this, however, only leaving to future studies to hold a cautious approach to international comparisons if working with the self-rated health item with four response categories. peerReviewed
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-05-04 |