Harmonizing Assessments of Everyday Racial Discrimination Experiences: The Multigroup Everyday Racial Discrimination Scale (MERDS)

Abstract

Reliable and valid assessment of direct racial discrimination experiences in everyday life is critical to understanding one key determinant of ethnoracial minority health and health disparities. To address psychometric limitations of existing instruments and to harmonize the assessment of everyday racial discrimination, the new Multigroup Everyday Racial Discrimination Scale (MERDS) was developed and validated. This investigation included 1,355 college and graduate students of color ( Mage = 21.54, 56.0% women). Factor analyses were performed to provide evidence for structural validity of everyday racial discrimination scores. Item response theory modeling was used to investigate item difficulty relative to the level of everyday racial discrimination, and measurement error conditioned on the construct. MERDS scores were reliable, supported construct unidimensionality, and distinguished individuals who reported low to very high frequency of everyday racial discrimination. Results on the associations with racial identity and psychopathology symptoms, and utility of the scale are discussed.