Um dos instrumentos mais utilizados na pesquisa epidemiológica sobre discriminação é o Experiences of Discrimination (EOD), utilizada no Brasil, porém não validado. O objetivo foi avaliar a confiabilidade e estrutura dimensional da escala EOD em uma população brasileira. Foi conduzido um estudo transversal com 1.380 adultos da cidade de Salvador, Bahia, Brasil. Realizou-se análise fatorial confirmatória (AFC) testando um modelo de dois fatores: experiência de discriminação e preocupação por discriminação. Os resultados da AFC mostraram parâmetros satisfatórios de ajuste, elevadas cargas fatoriais e valores adequados de confiabilidade, confirmando a consistência interna da escala. Identificaram-se correlações residuais envolvendo itens de ambos os fatores. A estrutura dimensional apresentada neste estudo destaca a importância de utilizar diferentes medidas de discriminação - interpessoais e grupais - que permitam em estudos futuros aprofundar nos efeitos do racismo sobre a saúde

Asthma is an important public health problem in urban Latin America. This study aimed to analyze the role of socioeconomic and environmental factors as potential determinants of asthma symptoms prevalence in children from Latin American (LA) urban centers. We selected 31 LA urban centers with complete data, and an ecological analysis was performed. According to our theoretical framework, the explanatory variables were classified in three levels: distal, intermediate, and proximate. The association between variables in the three levels and prevalence of asthma symptoms was examined by bivariate and multivariate linear regression analysis weighed by sample size. In a second stage, we fitted several linear regression models introducing sequentially the variables according to the predefined hierarchy. In the final hierarchical model Gini Index, crowding, sanitation, variation in infant mortality rates and homicide rates, explained great part of the variance in asthma prevalence between centers (R(2) = 75.0 %). We found a strong association between socioeconomic and environmental variables and prevalence of asthma symptoms in LA urban children, and according to our hierarchical framework and the results found we suggest that social inequalities (measured by the Gini Index) is a central determinant to explain high prevalence of asthma in LA.

The prevalence of asthma is high in urban areas of many Latin-American countries where societies show high levels of inequality and different levels of development. This study aimed to examine the relationship between asthma symptoms prevalence in adolescents living in Latin American urban centers and socioeconomic and environmental determinants measured at the ecological level. Asthma prevalence symptoms were obtained from the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) phase III. A hierarchical conceptual framework was defined and the explanatory variables were organized in three levels: distal, intermediate, proximal. Linear regression models weighed by sample size were undertaken between asthma prevalence and the selected variables. Asthma prevalence was positively associated with Gini index, water supply and homicide rate, and inversely associated with the Human Development Index, crowding and adequate sanitation. This study provides evidence of the potential influence of poverty and social inequalities on current wheezing in adolescents in a complex social context like Latin America.