Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Kathryn J. Horsley, DrPH, Epidemiology, Planning and Evaluation, Public Health - Seattle & King County, WFC #1200, 999 3rd Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104, 206 296-2789, kathryn.horsley@metrokc.gov and Sandra Ciske, MN, Community Based Public Health Practice, Public Health - Seattle & King County, 999 Third Avenue, Suite 1200, Seattle, WA 98104.

Public Health – Seattle & King County and United Way of King County initiated a system of surveying school readiness at the community level using the Early Development Instrument (EDI). The EDI is designed to measure how well prepared groups of children are to learn in school settings. Kindergarten teachers evaluated their kindergarten students in five domains of childhood development: physical health, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development and communication and general knowledge. EDI survey results are disseminated in the form of maps that display developmental domain scores by neighborhood in order to show areas of community strengths and challenges. The findings are used by local groups and parents to inform actions that improve community conditions and support families. Variation by neighborhood show that 20%- 43% of King County children are vulnerable on at least one of the five school readiness scales. Additional analyses were conducted to determine if the EDI is an accurate measure of school readiness regardless of cultural or language background of the student. First, factor analyses were conducted to determine if the factor structure hypothesized by the people who developed the EDI held for all ethnic and language groups in the King County sample. Then a Differential Item Functioning (DIF) study was conducted to examine bias for ethnic or language groups. Reliability analyses examined the internal consistency and precision of the instrument, and finally Generalizability analyses were conducted to take a closer look at factors affecting the reliability of the EDI.

Learning Objectives: