Assessment and the ubiquity of culture: threats to validity in measures of health-related quality of life

Social workers in health care settings are increasingly using patient-based assessments (PBAs) of health-related quality of life such as the SF-36. However, the validity of many PBAs for use with cultural minority groups is limited. To ensure that cultural minority groups are not misrepresented by standardized measures, social workers--as effective patient advocates--must be familiar with the underlying conceptual assumptions of measurement theory to articulate the strengths and limitations of measures used to investigate populations with which they have not been tested and advocate for cultural minority groups using language and terminology that measurement practitioners can understand and embrace.