Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Jul 22:13:105.
doi: 10.1186/s12955-015-0296-3.

Assessing children's interpretations of the Aboriginal Children's Health and Well-Being Measure (ACHWM)

Nancy L Young  1 , Mary Jo Wabano  2 , Stephen D Ritchie  3 , Tricia A Burke  4 , Brenda Pangowish  5 , Rita G Corbiere  6
Affiliations

Assessing children's interpretations of the Aboriginal Children's Health and Well-Being Measure (ACHWM)

Nancy L Young et al. Health Qual Life Outcomes. .

Abstract

Background: There are emerging opportunities to improve the health of Aboriginal children and youth. The Aboriginal Children's Health and Well-being Measure (ACHWM) was developed to enable Aboriginal communities to obtain group-level data from the perspectives of their children 8 to 18 years of age. The survey was developed in collaboration with children, based on the Medicine Wheel framework. The purpose of this study was to ensure that children and youth interpreted the ACHWM questions consistently and accurately and to establish the face validity of the survey.

Methods: Children and parents/caregivers from the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve (Canada) participated in a detailed interview process as they completed the ACHWM, in 2012. Each participant worked through their thought process verbally, to enable the interviewer to identify questions that were misinterpreted or inconsistently interpreted. Questions were revised based on feedback from the participants, and reviewed with new participants until a stable version was established. The resulting version was reviewed by health care providers and community members to further ensure cultural relevance and face validity within the community.

Results: A total of 18 interviews, with 9 children and 9 caregivers, were required to achieve a stable version of the survey. The children ranged in age from 8 to 18 years. Revisions were required for 19 questions. Most of these revisions were minor linguistic changes. In addition, 6 questions were deleted due to consistent problems and 4 questions were created to address gaps identified during the process. Community members confirmed the appropriateness of the measure for their community and communicated their pride in their youth's role in the development of this survey.

Conclusions: The result was a 58-question version of the ACHWM that was consistently interpreted and culturally appropriate, and had face validity confirmed by experts from the community, children and their parents/caregivers. The ACHWM is ready to be assessed for relevance to other Aboriginal communities.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Frohlich KL, Ross N, Richnond C. Health Disparities in Canada Today: Some Evidence and Theoretical Framework. Health Policy. 2006;79:132–143. doi: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2005.12.010. - DOI - PubMed
    1. King M, Smith A, Gracey M. Indigenous health part 2: the underlying causes of the health gap. Lancet. 2009;374(9683):76–85. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60827-8. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Loppie Reading C, Wien F. Health Inequalities and Social Determinants of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health. National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health: Prince George, BC; 2009.
    1. National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health . State of Knowledge of Aboriginal Health: A review of Aboriginal Public Health in Canada. Prince George, British Columbia: National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health; 2012.
    1. Canadian UNICEF Committee . Canadian Supplement to the State of the World’s Children. Aboriginal Children’s Health: Leaving No Child Behind. Toronto: UNICEF Canada; 2009.

Publication types