An alternative approach to cross-cultural function assessment

Bolton, Paul; Tang, Alice

doi:10.1007/s00127-002-0580-5

Cited by 196 publications

(168 citation statements)

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“…These links are important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that they suggest pathways through which food insecurity might trigger individuals to shift their behaviors. For example, mental health is often associated with functional disability (Bolton and Tang, 2002); mental health disorders may impose a substantial drain on household resources; mental illness may lower household productivity; and some of the physical effects of insecure access to food may be mediated by caregiver mental health.…”

Section: Food Insecurity Stress and Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Coates et al (2006b) provide a thoughtful discussion of this tension in their work in Bangladesh where they attempt to measure food insecurity in diverse populations with diverse dietary norms. Bolton and Tang (2002), relying heavily on anthropological methods, provide a nice example of designing and validating locally appropriate mental health scales; a great illustration of capturing key constructs in valid and locally appropriate ways. As Coates et al (2006a) argue, this requires that we see food insecurity not as a static outcome but as a ''managed process'' that may play out in unique ways in different settings.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Coping and the biosocial consequences of food insecurity in the 21st century

Hadley

Crooks

2012

American J Phys Anthropol

128

108

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Food security occurs when all members of a household have reliable access to food in sufficient quantity and quality to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle. Given the important biological and social value of food for humans, food and food sufficiency have been traditional topics of study among biological anthropologists. The focus on food insecurity, however, has emerged within the past two decades and recent global events, including the food crisis of 2007/2008, have led to renewed interests in the topic of food insecurity and wellbeing. Here, we review current and novel threats to food security, current thinking on measurement and definitions, and then outline a model that links food insecurity to coping strategies and then to health outcomes. We suggest that coping strategies are typically context-specific and can be food and nonfood based. We further suggest that coping strategies may impact health quite broadly, not just through nutritional pathways. We then review available data on the relationship between food insecurity and nutritional status, chronic diseases, infectious diseases, and mental health. Our review highlights the far reaching consequences of food insecurity for human wellbeing but also the considerable variability in its effect and our limited empirical knowledge of the pathways through which food insecurity impacts health. We conclude by offering thoughts on how biological anthropologists might contribute to growing our understanding of food insecurity and human health and wellbeing. Yrbk Phys Anthropol 55:72-94, 2012. V

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Section: Food Insecurity Stress and Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Coping and the biosocial consequences of food insecurity in the 21st century

Hadley

Crooks

2012

American J Phys Anthropol

128

108

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“…Third, HIV and many mental health issues, including violence, remain highly sensitive topics with weighty stigma attached to them. Qualitative research offers a rigorous and more useful method when investigating such sensitive topics.This article describes the first phase of a mixed-method approach including qualitative and quantitative methods (see Bolton, 2001;Bolton and Tang, 2002) to understand the relationship between HIV and mental health in Lusaka, Zambia. The two primary aims are (1) to determine the mental health issues that are important to the local population, and (2) to understand the local description of the issues including signs, symptoms, and causes.…”

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confidence: 99%

Violence and Abuse Among HIV-Infected Women and Their Children in Zambia

Murray¹,

Haworth²,

Semrau³

et al. 2006

Journal of Nervous &Amp; Mental Disease

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HIV and violence are two major public health problems increasingly shown to be connected and relevant to international mental health issues and HIV-related services. Qualitative research is important due to the dearth of literature on this association in developing countries, cultural influences on mental health syndromes and presentations, and the sensitive nature of the topic. The study presented in this paper sought to investigate the mental health issues of an HIV-affected population of women and children in Lusaka, Zambia, through a systematic qualitative study. Two qualitative methods resulted in the identification of three major problems for women: domestic violence (DV), depression-like syndrome, and alcohol abuse; and children: defilement, DV, and behavior problems. DV and sexual abuse were found to be closely linked to HIV and alcohol abuse. This study shows the local perspective of the overlap between violence and HIV. Results are discussed in relation to the need for violence and abuse to be addressed as HIV services are implemented in sub-Saharan Africa. KeywordsViolence/abuse; HIV/AIDS; qualitative; women; children There is growing evidence of the connection between HIV infection and domestic violence (DV) or interpersonal violence toward women and children (Dunkle et al., 2004;Koenig and Moore, 2000;Maman et al., 2000;Zierler and Krieger, 1997). Studies have reported that violence is highly prevalent in HIV-infected women (Cohen et al., 2000;Vlahov et al., 1998;Zierler et al., 1996). Researchers have proposed several hypotheses around this association. Some studies from the US and sub-Saharan Africa suggest that women who disclose HIV serostatus to partners may be at increased risk for violence (Gielen et al., 1997;Rothenberg et al., 1995;Temmerman et al., 1995 HIV were significantly more likely to have had a physically violent partner at some time, and to have experienced physical and/or sexual violence with a current partner (Maman et al., 2002). Another act of violence associated with increased HIV risk is child sexual abuse (CSA), where a higher proportion of CSA was found in HIV-positive women than in the general population (Koenig and Clark, 2004). Child sexual abuse often leads to substance use, multiple sexual partners, and/or a lack of self-protective behaviors, which are all risk factors for HIV infection (Wingood and DiClemente, 1997;Zierler et al., 1991). A review paper on the intersection between HIV and violence discusses the directions for future research, suggesting that qualitative research is needed to help describe the contextual factors that connect HIV and violence experienced in adulthood and childhood (Maman et al., 2000).This study investigates the mental health issues of an HIV-affected population of women and children in Lusaka, Zambia. This was designed as a systematic qualitative study for a number of reasons. First, there is a dearth of knowledge on cross-cultural conceptualization of mental health problems in sub-Saharan Africa in general, and specifically rel...

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“…We add that ideally one must carefully make an inventory of the expression of distress in other languages before one can conclude that the way people perceive their problem may or may not overlap DSM-IV or DSM-5 categories. Local categories of emotional distress help place the instruments within their proper cultural context (Bolton & Tang, 2002; de Jong, 2002). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The assessment of psychopathology among traumatized refugees: measurement invariance of the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 across five linguistic groups

Wind

Rie

et al. 2017

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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Background: Questionnaires are widely used to assess the mental health status of refugees, whereas their construct validity largely remains unexplored. Objective: This study examined the construct validity of two widely-used instruments for the assessment of PTSD symptoms (Harvard Trauma Questionnaire [HTQ]; 16 items) and symptoms of anxiety and depression (Hopkins Symptom Check list-25 [HSCL-25]; 25 items) among Dutch and refugee patients with different linguistic backgrounds. Method: We applied exploratory factor analyses and measurement invariance analyses to test construct validity.Participants (n =1 256) were divided into five linguistic groups defined by language family, including four non-western linguistic groups (Indo-Iranian [n = 262], Niger-Congo [n = 134], Semitic [n = 288], and South Slavic languages [n = 199]) and one western linguistic group (Germanic languages; Dutch [n = 373]). Results: Exploratory factor analysis yielded a 3-factor structure of the HTQ and a 2-factor structure of the HSCL-25. Measurement invariance 20 analyses on the HTQ showed strong measurement invariance across the groups of refugee patients. However, Dutch patients reported milder symptom severity on most items of the HTQ. Measurement invariance analyses on the HSCL-25 (not conducted in Dutch patients) indicated partial strong measurement invariance across refugee patients. Conclusion: We conclude that mental health constructs measured by the HTQ and the HSCL25 25 are to a large extent interpreted in a similar way by refugee patients. This indicates that these instruments can be applied in non-western refugee patient populations, and that local idioms of distress and inherent response patterns may not play a major role when applying the HTQ and the HSCL-25 in these populations. Yet, whereas meaningful comparisons of observed PTSD and depression scores between groups of refugee patients with different non30 western linguistic background are feasible, comparisons between patients with a western and non-western linguistic background, as well as comparisons of anxiety scores, are likely to be biased. Future studies need to establish whether the commonly used cut-off scores of both questionnaires apply for refugee patients with non-western linguistic backgrounds.

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An alternative approach to cross-cultural function assessment

Cited by 196 publications

References 0 publications

Coping and the biosocial consequences of food insecurity in the 21st century

Coping and the biosocial consequences of food insecurity in the 21st century

Violence and Abuse Among HIV-Infected Women and Their Children in Zambia

The assessment of psychopathology among traumatized refugees: measurement invariance of the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 across five linguistic groups

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