Psychometric evaluation of the Intersectional Discrimination Index for use in Brazil

Abstract

This cross-sectional study evaluated the configural and metric structures of the Intersectional Discrimination Index (InDI), an instrument that measures anticipated (InDI-A), dat-to-day (InDI-D), and major (InDI-M) discrimination. Data from a broader study, focused on the impacts of discrimination on the mental health of women living in Brazil, were used. Approximately 1,000 women, selected according to a convenience sampling scheme, answered the InDI and questions about sociodemographic characteristics in an electronic form that was administered in 2021. Exploratory factor analyses and exploratory structural equation modeling were applied to the first half of the sample; for the second, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. Taken together, the findings suggest that each of the three measures is one-dimensional. However, unlike the study that originally proposed the InDI for use in Canada and the United States, we observed the presence of residual correlations in the three subscales evaluated, all of which were suggestive of content redundancy between specific pairs of items. The three measures showed moderate to strong factor loadings and acceptable fit to the data. InDI exhibited reasonable internal validity, potentially becoming a valuable instrument for investigating the health effects of intersectional discrimination in Brazil. Future studies should evaluate the consistency of these findings, examine the scalar structure of the instrument, and analyze its invariance among different marginalized groups.