This is a draft of a chapter that has been accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in the forthcoming book Handbook of methodological approaches to community-based research:Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods, edited by L. A. Jason and D. S. Glenwick and due for publication in 2016.2 Latent class analysis (LCA) and latent profile analysis (LPA) are powerful techniques that enable researchers to glean insights into "hidden" psychological experiences to create typologies and profiles to provide better-informed community-based policies and practice. These analytic methods have been used in a variety of domains, such as: psychosis symptomatology in the general population (Kibowski & Williams, 2012;Shevlin, Murphy, Dorahy, & Adamson, 2007); substance abuse (Cleveland, Collins, Lanza, Greenberg, & Feinberg, 2010;James, McField, & Montgomery, 2013), peer victimization (Nylund, Bellmore, Nishina, & Graham, 2007), and anti-social/self-defeating behavior (Rosato & Baer, 2010). LCA and LPA are versatile methods of dealing with data of interest to community-based researchers in a deep and psychologically grounded way. This chapter will address the nuances of how and when to use LCA and LPA. Case studies of LCA and LPA will also be presented to illustrate the applicability of these techniques.
Introduction to Latent Class AnalysisThe main aim of LCA is to split data that are apparently homogeneous overall into subclasses of two or more different homogeneous groups or classes. Study participant responses to a questionnaire, structured interview, or behavioral checklist would be used as the basis for making probabilistic assessments of the likelihood of each participant being assigned to one of these classes. A participant's likelihood of belonging to any of the other latent classes would also be calculated, and then decisions would be made as to the ultimate class membership that each respondent would assume. The beneficial role that LCA can have is that, once class membership has been assigned to each participant in relation to the pattern of responses or behaviors, this class membership can be used to inform policies and practice-based interventions aimed at targeting a specific latent class that has emerged from the analysis. An example of the 3 potential for this method can be seen in a study of the transportation-related attitudes and experiences of workers (Williams, Murphy, & Hill, 2008). In this study, latent class analysis was deployed to examine the role of multimodality (i.e. using more than one mode of transportation) versus single transport mode use on commuters' psychological well-being.Other community-level analyses have utilized LCA to investigate how to encourage sections of the population to engage more in community-based arts activities (Biggins, Cottee, & Williams, 2012). LCA is also helpful for testing population-wide phenomena and epidemiological trends, such as the potential existence of psychosis symptom experiences being measured along a continuum throughout the general populati...