Approaches to Measurement and Definition in the Epidemiology of Behavior Disorders: Ethnic Background and Child Behavior

This paper presents methods of approaching mental illness which represent alternatives to the medical model and the current diagnostic system. It also points to new ways of handling such complex independent variables as race and class to more clearly delineate the critical components of those constructs for observed relationships. These approaches are briefly discussed and then exemplified in the context of a study which investigated the types and levels of stress to which children of different ethnicity were exposed and the congruence between impairment levels and stress exposure. Differential behavior patterns by ethnicity were determined, as were the relative roles of class versus ethnicity in children's disturbed behaviors. Measures were developed from questionnaire data collected from 1034 randomly selected Manhattan mothers. White children were least exposed to social stress, Spanish most exposed to marital-parental stress, and Black most exposed to stressful parental practices. While the estimated impairment rank-order was White, Spanish, and Black, both minority groups of children were significantly higher than Whites but similar to each other in impairment level. Analyses showed strong differences in behavior patterns by ethnicity and indicated that race made a stronger contribution than class to disturbed behaviors.