2026 · Study · English

Assessment of Measurement Equivalence of the Communities That Care Brief Depression Scale by Immigrant Generation Status in Latinx Youth

Delawalla, M. L. M., Rhew, I. C., Martinez, G., Skinner, M., Oesterle, S., & Guttmannova, K.

Delawalla, M. L. M., Rhew, I. C., Martinez, G., Skinner, M., Oesterle, S., & Guttmannova, K. (2026). Assessment of Measurement Equivalence of the Communities That Care Brief Depression Scale by Immigrant Generation Status in Latinx Youth. Journal of Community Psychology, 54(2), Article e70098. doi.org/10.1002/jcop.70098

Summary

Measurement-equivalence study of the Communities That Care Brief Depression Scale (CTC-BDS), the short screener for depressive symptoms carried in the CTC youth survey. The sample of 1,779 young people – 17.8% Latinx children of immigrants, 9.3% Latinx children of non-immigrants and 72.8% non-Latinx white youth – was surveyed in Grades 6, 8, 10 and 12. One-factor confirmatory factor analyses tested configural, metric and scalar equivalence across the three groups at each grade and across grades, using individual and incremental fit statistics. The one-factor structure held, and the scale showed measurement equivalence across ethnicity, immigrant generation and the course of adolescence. The authors conclude that the CTC-BDS can be used in community monitoring and research to compare depressive symptoms between Latinx youth of different immigrant generations and white youth. For European coalitions serving diverse populations the study models the invariance testing that should precede group comparisons on any survey scale.