Measuring disparities: bias in the Short Form-36v2 among Spanish-speaking medical patients.

BACKGROUND: Many national surveys have found substantial differences in self-reported overall health between Spanish-speaking Hispanics and other racial/ethnic groups. However, because cultural and language differences may create measurement bias, it is unclear whether observed differences in self-reported overall health reflect true differences in health. OBJECTIVES: This study uses a cross-sectional survey to investigate psychometric properties of the Short Form-36v2 for subjects across 4 racial/ethnic and language groups. Multigroup latent variable modeling was used to test increasingly stringent criteria for measurement equivalence. SUBJECTS: Our sample (N=1281) included 383 non-Hispanic whites, 368 non-Hispanic blacks, 206 Hispanics interviewed in English, and 324 Hispanics interviewed in Spanish recruited from outpatient medical clinics in 2 large urban areas. RESULTS: We found weak factorial invariance across the 4 groups. However, there was no evidence for strong factorial invariance. The overall fit of the model was substantially worse (change in Comparative Fit Index >0.02, root mean square error of approximation change >0.003) after requiring equal intercepts across all groups. Further comparisons established that the equality constraints on the intercepts for Spanish-speaking Hispanics were responsible for the decrement to model fit. CONCLUSIONS: Observed differences between SF-36v2 scores for Spanish-speaking Hispanics are systematically biased relative to the other 3 groups. The lack of strong invariance suggests the need for caution when comparing SF-36v2 mean scores of Spanish-speaking Hispanics with those of other groups. However, measurement equivalence testing for this study supports correlational or multivariate latent variable analyses of SF-36v2 responses across all the 4 subgroups, as these analyses require only weak factorial invariance.

Sustainable production of biologically active molecules of marine based origin.

The marine environment offers both economic and scientific potential which are relatively untapped from a biotechnological point of view. These environments whilst harsh are ironically fragile and dependent on a harmonious life form balance. Exploitation of natural resources by exhaustive wild harvesting has obvious negative environmental consequences. From a European industry perspective marine organisms are a largely underutilised resource. This is not due to lack of interest but due to a lack of choice the industry faces for cost competitive, sustainable and environmentally conscientious product alternatives. Knowledge of the biotechnological potential of marine organisms together with the development of sustainable systems for their cultivation, processing and utilisation are essential. In 2010, the European Commission recognised this need and funded a collaborative RTD/SME project under the Framework 7-Knowledge Based Bio-Economy (KBBE) Theme 2 Programme 'Sustainable culture of marine microorganisms, algae and/or invertebrates for high value added products'. The scope of that project entitled 'Sustainable Production of Biologically Active Molecules of Marine Based Origin' (BAMMBO) is outlined. Although the Union is a global leader in many technologies, it faces increasing competition from traditional rivals and emerging economies alike and must therefore improve its innovation performance. For this reason innovation is placed at the heart of a European Horizon 2020 Strategy wherein the challenge is to connect economic performance to eco performance. This article provides a synopsis of the research activities of the BAMMBO project as they fit within the wider scope of sustainable environmentally conscientious marine resource exploitation for high-value biomolecules.