Race-Related Events Scale

Psychometric Evaluation of Data From the Race-Related Events Scale

“…Therefore, valid and reliable measures are needed to study the link between perceived racial discrimination and health processes and outcomes. Although numerous measures to assess exposure to racism exist, researchers have discussed three significant limitations evidenced with these measures: (a) the measures typically do not assess multiple racial groups (see Bastos, Celeste, Faerstein, &Barros, 2010 andUtsey, 1998, for review;Waelde et al, 2010); (b) the measures include questions that ask about global experiences of racism (see Kressin, Raymond, & Manze, 2008, for a review); and (c) the measures contain few items that would meet the criteria for traumatic experiences as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th edition, DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The significance of these reported limitations cannot be overstated.…”

“…To address the above-mentioned limitations in the measurement of racism, Waelde et al (2010) developed the RES. This brief screening measure assesses perceived exposure to stressful and potentially traumatizing racerelated experiences and was designed to be both consistent with standard diagnostic definitions of traumatic events and applicable to diverse racial and ethnic groups.…”

“…African Americans reported more race-related stress than Asian Americans. Furthermore, respondents who met DSM-IV-TR criteria for exposure to trauma (i.e., criterion A1, exposure to a stressor, and criterion A2, subjective emotional response to the stressor) reported significantly more race-related stressors and more severe symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than respondents who did not meet DSM-IV-TR criteria for trauma exposure (Waelde et al, 2010). This initial validation study was an important first step in examining the utility of the RES and the extent to which it may be used with a range of racial and ethnic groups.…”

“…The original authors of the RES do not provide a discussion of the theory that informed the conceptualization of their measure. The authors indicate that RES was designed to include a range of items from daily hassles to potentially traumatic events, and although the initial validation study (Waelde et al, 2010) supported the utility of the RES, it did not assess the underlying factor structure of the measure. Although the RES was reported to be a screening instrument, an exploration of the underlying structure of the measure is needed to establish the construct validity and to lend support to the reliability of the instruments' scale scores.…”

“…The present study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Race-Related Events Scale (RES; Waelde et al, 2010), a relatively new measure to assess race-related stress, using exploratory factor analysis.…”