Brief functional English proficiency measure for health survey research

Abstract

Through three studies we develop a brief measure of functional English proficiency intended for use in health survey research and particularly with older adults. The samples involved in these studies included adults aged 18 to 93 years whose language of origin was Turkish (n = 497, 53% women); Macedonian (n = 209, 49% women); Spanish (n = 205, 68% women); Italian (n = 212, 52% women); Turkish (n = 201, 51% women), and Greek (n=150, 53% women). The resulting instrument, comprising four items is a good brief measure of English proficiency, with capacity to discriminate between high and low levels of proficiency in all language groups.