Data bearing on the effect of language of the interview on Hispanics' responses to a health survey in which no back-translation was undertaken reveal both lower reliabilities and lower bivariate correlations among Hispanics interviewed in Spanish than among Hispanics interviewed in English. An independent back-translation aimed at creating an English version of the questionnaire that was linguistically equivalent to the Spanish version indicated several inRecently, the importance of survey research in the planning and evaluation of health services has been reemphasized. I2 In addition, attention has been called to the importance of collecting accurate health data on the growing Hispanic minority in the United States.35 The methodological difficulties in the collection of health data from Hispanics has been discussed by Aday, et. al, 3 Salber and Beza,6 and Rice, et al.7 The present paper offers data on one aspect of these difficulties-the effect of inadequate translation on Hispanics' responses to health surveys.Although the effect of both language and culture on the stimulus value of health survey items has long been of concern to survey researchers working in multilingual communities, there is little evidence bearing on the practical consequences of questionnaire translation. For example, one might be interested in whether indices demonstrating adequate levels of reliability in one language achieve similar levels of reliability when translated. Similarly, one might ask whether predictive relationships observed among the variables in one language are replicated among those to whom the questionnaire was administrered in translation. Such Gilson, et al.8 stances in which the Spanish version was unidiomatic. Differences between the Spanish and English version in the idiomatic quality of the interview items, while not affecting meaning, appear to have affected the seriousness with which the interview situation was perceived. These perceptions, in turn, appear to have led to the response discrepancies observed. (Am J Public Health 1980; 70:1273-1281 lish back-translation is then used in the field. As a practical matter, however, the number of independent iterations most survey research organizations are either willing or capable of doing is limited. MethodThe present paper compares data derived from Hispanics responding to an interview in English with data derived from Hispanics responding to the Spanish language version of the interview. The data were taken from a health survey conducted in a large West Coast city. In 1976, a sample of 1,210 individuals statistically representative of this city were interviewed. All field work for this study was conducted by a large, academically based survey organization.

Objective. Although considerable research has been done on patient-physician interaction, few studies have examined discrepancies between patients and physicians in their assessments of the patient's physical functioning. One recent study reports such discrepancies between rheumatologists and 41 % of their rheumatoid arthritis patients. This article reports data replicating that study and examining the relationships between such discrepancies and a number of other variables.Methods. This is a longitudinal study of 158 patients with rheumatoid arthritis who were interviewed 4 times over a 2-year period and who reported their levels of physical functioning on the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales. At the time of the fourth interview, the rheumatologists rated each patient's physical functioning on the revised criteria published by the American College of Rheumatology.Results. Rheumatologists' assessments of their patients' physical functioning were discrepant with the patient's assessment for 35% of these patients. Twentyseven patients were rated as worse than they rated themselves and 28 were rated as better. There were no differences between the concordant and the two discrepant groups in demographic or health status characteristics. Conclusions. Taken together, these data imply that it is important for physicians to verify their perceptions with the patient and that it is important for patients to verify that the physician understands them correctly.Key words. Physical functioning; Rheumatoid arthritis; Patient-Physician interaction.Although there have been a number of studies of patient-physician interaction and its implications for a variety of outcomes, few studies have looked at discrepancies between physicians and their patients in estimates of the patient's physical functioning. This issue is especially important in the rheumatic diseases, where functional limitations may be the most problematic long-term symptoms with which the patient must struggle. Indeed, much of the patient education directed at arthritis patients is intended to maximize physical functioning. For example, most of the The Arthritis Helpbook (11, is devoted to teaching patients how to improve their physical functioning.Given the centrality of long-term physical limitations in the rheumatic diseases, there are at least two reasons to examine discrepancies between physicians and patients in their estimates of the patient's physical functioning. First, a recent overview of new developments in patient education for persons with rheumatic diseases (2) indicates there is substantial attention currently being paid to improving the patient education skills of physicians. However, there are a number of studies suggesting that physicians and patients differ in their perceptions of patients' health status, health behaviors, and health attitudes (3-5). Indeed, in a study of 42 physicians practicing in hospitalbased outpatient units and 76 physicians practicing in the community, the physical limitations of patients was underestimated 75% of the ti...

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Objective. To examine the role of socioeconomic status (SES)

This article presents an entertainment education strategy used to influence Hollywood prime-time and daytime television programs to add storylines on the importance of immunizations to their shows. Rather than giving information about immunizations to show producers, directors, actors, and writers, we furnished "log lines" and true stories about immunizations that could be used to inspire scripts that included immunization themes. By working through personal contacts within the entertainment television industry's closed system of networks, we were able to gain entree and some airtime for our campaign agenda. Embedded messages aired on eight popular shows in the 1996-1997 broadcast season, with five scheduled to air in the 1997-1998 season. These efforts were evaluated qualitatively, focusing on issues of personal networks, content of aired messages, and comparative costs for paid airtime. The strategy developed can be adapted for a range of entertainment education interventions.