A comparison of simple score and latent class approaches: application to HIV knowledge data in Chinese and multi-country contexts

Abstract

Knowledge about different health-related attitudes, beliefs, and risks is of significant interest to scholars in different Social Science disciplines. Usually knowledge is collected in a form of multiple variables and then constructed as a composite indicator. The question any researcher working with knowledge-related variables faces is: what is the best way to measure and summarise different dimensions of health-related knowledge? The main goal of this paper is to evaluate and compare simple score and latent class approaches to measuring and summarising health-related knowledge using population data on HIV knowledge collected in five selected countries (China, India, Kenya, Malawi, and Ukraine). The advantages and shortcomings of both approaches (simple score and latent class approaches) to measuring and summarising health-related knowledge are evaluated and discussed.

Keywords:

• Latent class analysis
• composite indicators
• simple score measures
• HIV knowledge
• China

Acknowledgements

Olga Maslovskaya, PhD, was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC 1+3 scholarship: PTA-031-2006-00185), which facilitated her contribution. The authors thank the editorial team and the anonymous referees for providing useful suggestions and comments. They also thank Professor Nyovani J Madise and Professor Monica Magadi for their valuable advice. They are grateful to Professor Li Bohua from the China Population and Development Research Centre (CPDRC) in Beijing, China, for access to the China National Population and Reproductive Health Survey 1997 and the China National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Survey 2001.